Your Will Be Done

Following King Jesus means trusting His leadership where we most want control.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Well, hey everybody, it is great to see you, whether you're here in the room or joining us online. I'm honored to have you along for the ride. Before we get to the content, I've been so good this season not talking football. Would you agree? A few of you were like emailing me like, did you stop paying attention to football? No, I didn't. I was disciplining, but I can hold myself in no longer. Okay, here's what happened. Yesterday there was a Michigan football game, okay? And I don't know if you all saw this game. Some of you were excited at the outcome, some of you, like me, were horrified at the outcome. But anyway, I was in the car when it ended when it happened. And if you don't know, you should see it. And uh I was taking my parents back from the airport, and I got 27 texts in a row. And here's what my friends were saying. Are you okay? Do you need prayer? Are you, you know, like this. And then there was one, though, one text from a pastor friend who really was trying to care for my soul. Unfortunately, he is an Ohio State guy. And here was his, he sent me a screenshot of Michigan fans charging the field week one. Remember that? Interesting situation? And then a screenshot of the Iowa bench right after the, and he just said, if you live by the sword, die by the sword. And I said to him, I don't think Jesus would have said that, and he said, That's fair. Anyway, we're in the third week of a series called King Jesus that explores what it looks like to see Jesus not only as your savior, but also as your king. And I want to begin our time together today with a question. It goes like this Have you ever asked somebody for advice and then kept explaining your situation until they finally gave you the answer you wanted? Uh-huh. Don't nudge the person next to you. Yeah. Like you tell them, man, I really want your honest opinion, and they give it to you, but you immediately think, well, you don't really understand the situation. So you give them a little more information. You explain what makes your circumstances unique, like everyone else would say that, but this is why it's different. You mentioned what someone else told you, and if none of that works, you go find another person to ask who maybe will tell you what you want to hear, right? Um, I'm telling you, it's like sometimes when we ask for advice, what we're really looking for is approval. Like we've already made the decision, and we would just feel better about it if someone agreed with us. And then I bring this up because sometimes I think we may approach God this way too. Like we ask him for direction when what we really want is his approval. We say we want him to lead us, but really we kind of already decided where we're willing to go. And that's the tension we've been exploring for the past two weeks. If you weren't with us last week, we asked whether we were inviting Jesus into our plans or if we were accepting his invitation to join in his plans. And today I want to take it another step farther. I want to talk about those moments when we know what Jesus is asking us to do, but we wish he were asking us for something else. Like we know that we need to apologize, we know we need to tell the truth and come clean, we know we need to ask for help. We're just hoping there's a way forward that doesn't require us to actually do it because we don't want to do it. And that brings me to the question I want you to ask yourself today. It's a question I've been chewing on all week. Where am I asking for God's help? Well, resisting his leadership. And uh just a quick disclaimer: if you're here this morning and you're still trying to figure out what you believe about Jesus, first, we are honored you're here. Um but what this question will do for you is give you a window into what actually following Jesus looks like. And if that's you, you're welcome to just consider that idea without pretending you've already made a commitment. But for those of us who have made a commitment to Jesus, I would argue this is an invitation to look honestly at our lives. Like we call Jesus our Lord, our King, but are we still insisting on having the final say in our life? And uh it may surprise you to learn that Jesus actually anticipates that tension, that struggle, and he invites us to bring it into our conversations with God. Like daily. It's right at the heart of a prayer that many of us learned as children. Um, but here's the thing um we've said it so many times that it's easy to stop considering what those words mean. And so today, what I want to do is slow down and explore a part of this famous prayer that Jesus taught his followers to pray. Uh, and fortunately for us, a man named Matthew, who was one of Jesus' first followers, records the prayer in his account of Jesus' life in the New Testament. So Jesus looks at his audience and tells them. He says, This 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. And just think for a minute about what this prayer is asking. Your will be done means that we're sort of inviting God to direct our lives, even when we would have chosen a different way. And obviously, if we're gonna do that, honestly, it takes a lot of trust. And so just notice with me how Jesus begins this prayer with these words that I've highlighted, our Father. It's like before teaching us to ask for God's will to be done, Jesus reminds us who we're talking to, because that's important. He says, you're approaching a heavenly father who knows your needs and who welcomes you into relationship with him. You don't have to wonder whether you've caught him in a good mood. Jesus invites us to come with the confidence of children who belong to God's family, to speak honestly about what we need and what we fear, and even where we're still struggling to trust him. But I think there's another part of this opening phrase. Jesus talks about not just the Father in heaven, but our Father. He wants us to know that even when we pray alone, we need to remember that we're a part of a family. Like our needs matter deeply to God, but so do the needs of the people we're frustrated with, the people we're competing against, and the people we're too busy to notice. And uh, at least for me, remembering that can change what I ask for. Like I may come to God asking him to make someone less difficult to deal with, and then begin to recognize that I need his help to treat this person with more care. Like, because their life matters to God beyond whatever role they play in my life. Uh, here's just a quick example how that might play out in the real world. Just imagine you're praying before a demanding work day. There's a deadline, uh, there's a project due, and everybody on your team needs to do their part. So it would make sense as a person of faith to ask God for help getting things done. But what if during that same prayer you also asked him to help you notice the people who are doing the work with you? Like someone on your team may be struggling because they need clearer expectations. Someone else might be carrying a problem you know nothing about, and so they're distracted. You can take the deadline seriously and still pay attention to how you're treating your team. Their dignity doesn't disappear because you're under pressure. And I'm telling you, prayer is powerful because it can begin to loosen your grip on the assumption that everything revolves around you. So, like before we ask for our circumstances to change, Jesus says, Listen, when you pray, I want to remind you that you're a part of a family. You come to our father. And now, before we go any further, just a little um little aside on that word father. I know for some of you um the word father makes trust incredibly difficult. Your experience taught you to be careful around authority, and you sort of had to learn to read the room and manage someone's mood and keep certain things to yourself, and if that's your story, you need to know that Jesus isn't asking you to imagine God as a larger version of the person who hurt you. Like, let him show you what your heavenly father is like. You can read about it in the Gospels. Watch how Jesus welcomes people, watch how he takes their suffering seriously, and watch how he confronts those who exploit other people. Like through Jesus, we get to see why this Father, our Heavenly Father, deserves our trust. And then Jesus keeps talking. The next words of the prayer teach us to give God the honor he deserves. Jesus says it this way, he says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. And that phrase teaches us to pray that we want God's name to be treated as holy. That's what this word hallowed means. We want the way we live our lives to reflect how much he matters to us. And if you think about it, that idea sort of shifts the focus of the prayer. I mean, I may arrive at prayer preoccupied with what people think of me, but Jesus wants me to care about how my life reflects on him. And honoring him includes becoming willing to follow his direction. And that brings us to the requests in the prayer that's at the center of our conversation today. Jesus says, us, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I'm telling you, this is a massive prayer. Jesus teaches us to ask for God's good rule and reign to reach every part of our broken world. We're asking him to defeat evil, restore what's broken, and bring about the day when everything will finally be made right. And obviously that's far more than we could ever accomplish by ourselves. We need God to do what only God can do. But notice where we're asking his will to be done. He's on earth. And that's where it gets personal because that includes like my home and my workplace and the conversations I'm gonna have this afternoon. I can't sincerely ask for God's will to be done everywhere else while insisting on having the final say in my life. So this prayer includes a willingness to let Him lead me. And that's where I think these really familiar words, if we're reading them honestly, can become a little uncomfortable. Because I think it's often possible for us to pray your will be done while secretly thinking, as long as it doesn't interfere too much with mine. Because I have a will too, and sometimes they're in conflict. Like God, um, help our marriage, but please start with what they need to change, right? Or God, um, give me peace, but please don't make me have the conversation that I've been avoiding. We want God to work, we just have a few suggestions about who he ought to work on first, right? Usually it's someone who isn't around to defend themselves, but but this prayer brings our own willingness into the conversation. We can ask God, will you change the situation? And Jesus would say, yes, you ask him that, but you also ask God, how do you want me to respond in this situation? And of course, that doesn't mean that every difficulty we face in life is our fault, but it means that even when we didn't create the problem, we're still responsible for how we respond to it. And if Jesus is our Lord, if Jesus is our King, his leadership reaches into our responses to. Just imagine a disagreement at home and you've been misunderstood. This happens in life, right? And there's something you legitimately need to explain to your partner, but somewhere along the way, you stop trying to help the other person understand and you start trying to make them regret ever disagreeing with you, right? Like you know which comment will sting and which old failure you could bring up that might give you leverage. And if you're honest, in that emotionally charged moment, you're far more interested in landing the next verbal punch than you are listening to what they're trying to say. Like, what would it mean to pray your God, your will be done in that moment? It might mean um slowing down long enough to listen without preparing your next argument. Or admitting that you got um some stuff wrong without immediately listing everything that they got wrong, because there's often wrong on both sides. You and in the end, you may still need to disagree and you may need to establish a boundary or get help having a difficult conversation, but being right about the issue doesn't give you permission to be cruel to the person when Jesus is your king. Your will be done reaches into that moment when you know exactly what you want to say, and you need to ask whether saying it would honor him. And that can be harder than it sounds because um when we stop defending our response long enough to examine our response, we may actually discover something sinister underneath our response. Fear. We think to ourselves, man, if I if I admit I was wrong, like will anything I've said still be taken seriously? Or um if I stop trying to control people what they think of me, will they still respect me? Or uh if I tell the truth, what happens to the life that I've worked so hard to build? Like we may know what Jesus is asking and still be afraid of what obedience will cost. Like we trust his wisdom in general, but like we think, okay, but here in this relationship, this situation, this reputation, this future, I'm not sure I have enough trust for that yet. And that's where surrender gets difficult. We're being asked to trust him with something we're afraid to lose. And this has been a part of the human story, by the way, since the very beginning. I mean, many of you know the first story in the Bible about those first people in the Garden of Eden. And their temptation was to believe that God was holding back something they needed and that they would be better off deciding what is good for themselves. That temptation is familiar to us because we tell ourselves things like, well, I'll become generous once I feel financially secure, or I'll tell the truth once it costs me less. Like, yeah, I'm willing to follow Jesus here, but but only once it no longer feels like a risk. But see, while we wait for obedience to feel safe, fear is making the decision. We organize our lives around whether whatever it is that we're afraid to lose, maybe like someone's approval. We stay quiet when we need to speak, or we agree to something we know isn't right because we don't want to disappoint the other person. So maybe it's approval, maybe it's a secret. At first, like hiding something feels like self-protection, but it leaves us anxious about being found out, sort of distant from people that could actually help with our problems and constantly trying to manage what others know and what they've heard. So in that situation, surrender can begin with just like an honest prayer, something like Jesus, I know what you're asking, but I'm afraid of what obedience might cost. Like part of me still wants to protect this. Help me trust you here. It's an honest confession. We can tell our Heavenly Father what's happening inside us, including what we're afraid we won't have if we follow his direction. Your kingdom come, that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then Jesus continues. And check out what he prays for next. This is so interesting. He says, next, give us today our daily bread. And in the original context, daily bread refers to the things that we need to live and work and make it through the day. So this is powerful because you know, following Jesus' leadership in our lives, if he's our king, it doesn't mean pretending we can manage without his care. We're actually learning to depend on his care. This is a this is a declaration of dependence. And that helps us understand what surrender looks like. You still apply for the job that you need, you still seek wise advice, you still prepare for the difficult conversation, you take responsibility for what you can do while trusting God with what you can't control. You want an outcome deeply, but you've decided that you're not going to do whatever it takes to get it. Because you want the ends, but you know that God cares about the means. And so you pray, God, I need work and I really want this opportunity, and you know that. Please open a door and help me be honest during the interview process of what I've done and what I can really deliver for the company. Or we pray, like, God, um, I'm worried that telling the truth might put me at a disadvantage. Help me trust you with that too. It's like Jesus says, I want you to ask for provision and choose honesty in the same breath. You don't know whether you'll get the job, but you do know that following Jesus includes being truthful while you pursue it. And I think there's something else here too. I think we also need to recognize that when we're asking God to clarify something, there are times in life where we ask God to clarify something that He's already made clear. Like we don't need a special sign to tell us whether to deceive someone or to treat someone with dignity. Sometimes we know what faithfulness requires. We're just hoping for a less costly option. And sometimes the cost isn't money, it's it's the position we think we deserve, or it's the chance to be noticed, to have influence, or like to be the one in charge, because that's a very natural human impulse, and that was actually something Jesus' first disciples had to wrestle with. It's in an account of his life written by an early Jesus follower named Mark, and Mark describes that moment for those first disciples this way. He writes, Then he said, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with a request. They said, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever you ask. What do you want me to do for you? said Jesus. They replied, Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. No big deal. We just want to be the right hand and left-hand man. What do you think? Yeah? Cool. Yeah. They want the places of greatest honor. They think they know where Jesus is going, and they're like, we think it ends on in a throne room, and they're those two little thrones beside the big throne. We'd like those, please, sir. Jesus guy. Yeah, right. They want honor, they want to follow Jesus and be important in his kingdom. And here's what's so fun about this account: the other disciples overhear the conversation, and they're like, yes, give it to them. No, they don't. They become angry. And in response, Jesus calls a huddle and explains that their life together must operate by different rules than everything else around them. And he says it this way He says, You know that those who are regarded as the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, and here it stings, not so with you. That's not how it works in my kingdom. Instead, he says, Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. And I think the disciples were all looking at their feet. And then Jesus went on to explain that he himself, the Son of Man, came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. It's almost like Jesus says, guys, listen, this is how your king uses his power. And I expect you, if you're gonna follow me, to use your influence for the good of others too. James and John are thinking about how to get a better position for themselves. And Jesus says, no, no, no. I want you to consider what you want that position for. Who's gonna benefit from the influence you've been given? And I think that's worth asking when we pray for more responsibility or a promotion or a greater opportunity to lead. Like if Jesus is our king, what would we actually do with it? Would we become more useful to others, or would we simply expect more people to accommodate to us? And you don't have to run a company to have that choice. I mean, you might be that person in your friend group who sort of sets the tone. And if you're you, you know you're you, and we all know you're you too, right? But like, you know, if you're in this group setting and someone becomes a subject of gossip and people kind of look to you to see how you'll respond, like what are the rules of this one? And you can laugh along, you can add something, or or you could say, hey, you know, I'm not sure we've heard enough to be talking about them this way. And it may, it may cause an awkward moment, it probably will, but but see, you've used your influence to protect someone who isn't there to protect themselves. And you can do it in a way that doesn't humiliate the person who started the conversation. That's why following Jesus reaches deeper than just avoiding obvious wrongdoing. We we can do all sorts of acceptable things while still organizing our lives around being admired or being needed or being in charge. And Jesus asks us to consider whose good we're pursuing and whether we're willing to serve when there's no recognition in it for us. And we shouldn't pretend that that's always gonna feel rewarding. I mean, sometimes you serve and nobody notices, sometimes you make room for someone else and they get the credit. You do what Jesus asks you to do, even though you don't want to, and the outcome isn't what you hoped. But see, if our willingness to follow depends on his way making life easier, we'll eventually find a reason. To stop. We need a reason to trust him that holds up when obedience costs us something. And here's the thing. Our king, the king who is asking us to trust him, knows what costly obedience feels like. As many of you know, on the night before his crucifixion, Jesus goes to an olive grove, a garden of olive trees, just outside of the city of Jerusalem. And he's deeply distressed. He knows what's coming. He asks his disciples to stay nearby. He's going to go pray. And then he goes and pours out his heart to God. And he asks God whether there's another way. Because he knows the cross is coming. The disciples don't, but Jesus does. And then Jesus prays the most unbelievable thing. He says this, yet, after God, I don't want to do this. This is way, there's got to be another way. Yet he says, Not as I will, but as you will. Like in this moment, we hear Jesus pray the surrender, he taught his followers to pray. They were supposed to pray, Your kingdom come and your will be done. And Jesus just essentially prayed to God, your will be done. The difference in this scene is now we see what these words will cost him. So Jesus isn't pretending that the suffering ahead is something he wants to experience. He tells his father honestly what he wants, and then he entrusts his father even as he faces what he dreads. And that's so powerful for us to remember because I think we often assume that surrender should make us feel calm about what lies ahead. Like if we finally say, okay, God, I surrender, I will do what you want me to do, like am I not supposed to have this overwhelming sense of calm? Apparently not. Apparently, you can be frightened and faithful at the same time. You can ask God for another way while remaining willing to follow wherever he leads. I would say being honest about the struggle, that struggle belongs in this prayer. But if you think about it, Jesus gives us more than an example of how to face something difficult. He's going to the cross for people who have resisted God, people like us. And he bears our sin and opens the way for us to be reconciled to God. So the one teaching us to pray, our Father, gives his life to bring us into that relationship. And so when Jesus asks for our trust, we have somewhere to look. Like we can look at the cross and see how far he has gone for our good. Before we could offer him a lifetime of faithful obedience, he gave himself for people who needed forgiveness. And then, of course, God raised Jesus from the dead. So the crucified king, our crucified king, is alive. What looked like the end of his mission becomes the announcement of his victory over sin and death. And that doesn't mean that every costly decision we make will work out the way we hoped. And it doesn't require us to call every tragedy good or pretend we understand why everything happened. But I would argue it gives us a reason to trust the one we're following. His love has been demonstrated at the cross, and his power to overcome death has been revealed in the resurrection. We may not know how our situation will unfold, but we know something about the king to whom we're entrusting it. And that's why surrender, kind of whatever God is asking us to do, surrender isn't an attempt to make ourselves worthy of his love. It's our response to the love he has already shown. We can admit where we're resisting him and where we need for his forgiveness and ask for his help to take the next step. And that invitation, that's discipleship. That invitation is still open if you've been here before recently. Like maybe you've prayed about the same thing a hundred times and then returned to that same habit. The next step for you may be telling someone what you've been trying to handle alone. Like instead of making another private promise to try harder, tell someone you trust, man, this is where I keep getting stuck. Will you help me? You don't have to do it alone. Life is better together. And that's the kind of community we really want Keystone to be, a place where we receive grace without pretending our choices don't matter. And where people help us take responsibility for what comes next. And it might mean an apology or a visit with a counselor or repayment or having a conversation that we'd rather avoid. But often those situations are where following Jesus takes shape in a specific step that doesn't even look particularly dramatic. I think most days following Jesus simply involves choosing how we'll respond to the people and responsibilities right in front of us. Will I listen rather than defend myself? Will I keep the promise now that it's inconvenient? Will I accept the help I've been too embarrassed to ask for? Like those decisions change the way the people we live with see us, the way they see us work and the way they experience us. Because they hear the apology, they see us keep our word, they discover we're willing to listen. It's like that's where the your will be done begins to take shape in like an ordinary day. And so let's return to the question we started with. Um it's a searching question. Where am I asking for God's help while resisting his leadership? And I think for most of us, like something came to mind when I put the question up 27 minutes ago, right? Like, and maybe for you, that's that's where you start applying the idea that Jesus is your king today. You don't have to sort out your entire life, just name that one place and ask, okay, Jesus, what would it look like to follow you here? And just be specific. Like, is there an apology to make? Is there someone you need to ask for help? Is there something you need to stop trying to control? And if you aren't sure, talk to someone wise who can help you sort of discern that next step. What matters is what you do when you're back in that situation. So here's a practice I just invite you into this week. As you pray about your day, a pause and pause and think about these words. Just say, your will be done. And say, in this part of my life and name it. Name the relationship that's in trouble, name the decision, name the thing you're holding on to. Tell your heavenly father what you want and what you're afraid of losing, and then ask for his help to do what you believe he's asking. Let the prayer become a step you actually take. And if you need to pray it again tomorrow because you messed up, that's fine. Pray it again. Trust grows as we keep bringing our lives before our Heavenly Father and learning to follow with His help and with the people beside us. And uh, as we begin to close today, we have an opportunity to take communion. And uh it's a chance to remember why we can bring Jesus to the places where following him feels hardest. The king who asked for our trust did not stand at a distance and demand we prove ourselves worthy, he gave himself for us. His body was broken, his blood was poured, he made forgiveness and relationship with our heavenly Father possible. So this isn't a moment to make another private promise that we'll try harder this week. I would argue it's a moment to reflect on his grace. If you've placed your faith in Jesus, um you're invited to come just a moment to receive the bread and the cup as a reminder that you belong to your king. And as you do, bring him that situation, be in him today, receive his forgiveness and thank him for his love and ask him to help you follow him there. And if you're here again and you're still considering uh Jesus, feel free to take a pass on communion. Just know that we are honored that you're here. So that said, um, just a couple logistical things. There's communion stations at the front and the back, and all of the bread is now gluten-free, so uh you can go to any station. So uh just take a moment, the band is gonna play, reflect, and then when you're ready, come and receive. And uh when we've all been served, I'll return and close our time in prayer.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Take my life and let it be consecrated law for thee. Take my moments in my eyes, let them flow in the cease to spray.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Take my hand and shut up, take my feet and beautiful, take my lips, and let me see.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Take my moments and my days, let them fall in cease.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

He is so good and he is so worthy of our trust and of our lives.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Just stand just a moment. I'll pray. If you if you'd like to pray with someone, if you brought a struggle into this place and just need someone else to pray over you and to remind you that you're loved, we see some friends under the screen to the left, but for the rest of us, let me close. Heavenly Father, we celebrate who you are. We celebrate what you have done and we celebrate what you are doing in our lives. Thank you for grace when we fail. And thank you for the invitation to get up and to follow. I pray that this week as we maybe pray that prayer anew, we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done. That we may follow within my life and in this situation. And as we follow, may we find a beautiful relationship with you in the midst of a broken world. May we come to believe that you are trustworthy always. And everyone said, Amen. Grace and peace, dear friends. We'll see you next week.