Chapter 6. I'm going to step
back. We went through this chapter
over the last couple of weeks. I want to go through these 9
through 13. But I mainly want to deal with
Thy will be done. Thy will be done. This is what we want. This is
what we want. I'm trying to think of how to
say this correctly, but this is when a man is saved. This is when a man has been born
of God. When he, from his heart, he or
she, from their heart, submit to the will of God. The disciples
in Luke chapter 11 at verse 1, they heard our Lord praying. He was praying. And after he
had finished praying, they said, teach us to pray. Teach us to
pray. They heard him. They were impressed. They were moved at his prayer. And they said, teach us to pray. And he gives this short prayer. Too short for hypocrites. This
prayer is too short for hypocrites. They love, he said, to stand
on the street corners and in the synagogues and to pray out
loud to be seen and heard of men. But what He gives in these
verses covers everything, doesn't it? It covers everything. And
the point that I really want to deal with most is, Thy will
be done. And we'll look at that in a minute.
Now, He starts out and He says, Our Father. How sweet is that? That a sinful
man, a sinful woman, can call God their Father. He's our Father
by election. I read that to you in Ephesians.
That's the reason I read that in Ephesians because it had a
lot to say about His will. And we read where He's our Father
by election. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. He told His disciples in one
place, you did not choose me, I chose you. I chose you. Let's get the order right. I
chose you. He is our Father by adoption.
We have been adopted by Him. He is our Father by regeneration.
God Almighty. God who created the heavens and
the earth. He is our Father. He's our Holy Father. And there's
only one Holy Father. The Pope's not it. God is Holy. And He's our Holy Father. He's
our loving Father. Loving. He's our gracious Father. And this God is our Father. And our Father is in Heaven.
Our Father is above all. He rules over all from heaven. Our Father does. And our Father
is holy, hallowed, we say at your prayer, hallowed be thy
name. Unlike all earthly fathers, all
earthly fathers are sinful. All of them, all the way back
to Adam. Every last one of them and every last one of us are
sinful by nature. But our Father, our heavenly
Father, is holy by nature. Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty. That's what they cry day and
night. They glorify Him in His holiness. They praise Him in
His holiness. He's holy in nature. And being holy, He can do no
wrong. Now listen, we have a Father
who can do no wrong. We have a Father who can will
no wrong. Everything He wills, everything
that He does is right. All His ways are right. Righteousness,
all of it. He's perfect in every way. And this is our Father. And as
His children, we pray that His kingdom would come. That our
Father's kingdom would come. His kingdom of righteousness,
His kingdom of grace, His kingdom of truth, we pray that it come. Oh, what a day that'll be. What
a day that'll be. When that kingdom is fully come
and fully realized by all His children. What a day. When it's fully revealed. And this world, the kingdoms
of this world, are gone. They're gone. Sin's gone. Satan's gone. Everything that offends is gone.
And nothing but righteousness and truth and grace and love
and kindness and joy. Every day. Well, it's just going
to be one long day. It's not going to be day and
night. It will just be an eternity of these things. Of these spiritual
things that we have in Christ. It will be an eternity of them.
No heartaches. No tears. No departing. No more dying. I was at a funeral. Henry preached that, and he and
I walking together away as we left, and he said, I'll be glad
when we quit dying. No more dying. None of that. It's all gone. Now you see why
we pray, thy kingdom come. What a kingdom. Oh, what we had
to look forward to. His children have a great desire
for His kingdom to come fully? Because that means we will be
with our Father. We will be with Him. I haven't
seen God. You haven't seen God. I haven't seen Jesus Christ.
You've not seen Him, but we will. We will. You remember that thief
on the cross? He said, Lord, remember me when
You come into Your kingdom. I looked this word up today just
in the Gospels. It is absolutely full of this
Kingdom of God. I mean, you look it up sometime.
It's just full. Speaking of the Kingdom of God.
And the reason we desire to come is to be with Him. And then His
children desire their Father's will to be done. Now that takes
a work of grace. That takes a work of grace. You
know, growing up, when you're children, there's a clash of
wills. That's why there's trouble in the home. That's why there's
trouble, especially when you get to be teenagers. That's why
there's trouble. There's a clash of wills. The Scripture says, Thy
people shall be willing. He makes us willing by a new
creation, a new heart, the work of the Holy Spirit, trials, all
these things. He makes us willing. Willing
for His will to be done. Thy will. Thy will be done. on earth as it is in heaven. How is His will done in heaven?
It's done reverently. It's done willingly. It is done
expediently. And it is done obediently. Thy will be done is the essence
of a believer. And then we show our dependence
on our Father. Give us this day our daily bread. We depend on
Him. We don't depend on our earthly
fathers as we get older. We don't call back home when
we shouldn't be. Shouldn't be calling back home constantly
saying, send me, send me, send me. No, we grow up, but you know,
we never quit depending on our heavenly father. It is give,
Lord give, because if you don't, I won't make it. We totally,
completely depend on him. We sing a song, I need thee,
every hour. I need thee. And then here's
our need. Forgive us our debts. Oh, we
have many spiritual debts. Debts we don't even realize that
Christ put away. But we pray, forgive us our debts.
We need forgiveness daily. Discharge them, Lord, because
we can't discharge any of them. As we forgive our debtors, Well,
I thought if God forgave me based on how I actually forgive others.
But that's what he's saying. Forgive me as we forgive others. That puts it in a more serious
light, doesn't it? Forgiving others. How does God forgive
us? Completely. He forgives us completely. And doesn't even bring it back
up. It's gone. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Evil tendencies, the evil one,
anything that would lead us into evil, the Lord delivers from
it. Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. It's His.
It's all His. The glory is His. The power is
His. The kingdom is His. And we're glad it's so. We are
glad it's so. Now, the place that I want us
to look at here in verse 10 Thy will be done. The one place we
desire to come to in faith and in maturity is to be able to
pray from the heart in every situation. You know, I thought
about this. Don't say, Thy will be done flippantly,
because sometimes it's going to hurt. Sometimes it's going
to hurt, this flesh. In the heart. It's for her. We
pray. We come to this place. We pray,
Lord, Thy will be done. Our Lord did that in the garden.
When He was about to face the wrath of God, He was about to
face being made sin for us. He said, not my will, but Thine
be done. I thought if we want to be conformed
to the image of Christ, and we do as believers. We do as God's
children. We want to be conformed to the
image of the Lord Jesus Christ. It starts right here. Thy will
be done. When a believer comes to understand
who his Father is, he's God. He's holy. He understands who
Jesus Christ is. He's been taught by God. All
thy children shall be taught of the Lord. He prays. I will
be done. I know that the will of God concerns
His glory and our eternal good. And God never, He has never willed
anything opposite of these two things, His glory and our good. Never. And all that God does
is after the counsel, I read this to you in Ephesians 111,
all that He does is after the counsel of His own will before
this world began. Everything is after the wise,
infinite, wise counsel of God concerning us in Christ. God
has never willed anything unwisely, nor has He ever willed anything
on the spur of the moment. That's all settled. His will,
His decrees are all settled. It's settled. God's will is supreme. Paul said over there in Acts
21, I believe it was Paul said, the will of the Lord be done. His will is supreme above all
else. The Lord's will be done. We say
that, this building we're talking about, the Lord's will be done.
Whatever it is in our own personal life, the Lord's will be done.
It's supreme. It's supreme. James said in James
4, 15, don't say we're going to go into the city, we're going
to do this, we're going to do that tomorrow. You know, we're going to just...
No, he said, if the Lord will, we'll do this or that. If he
will. Then his will is sovereign. It
says over in Romans 9, 19, who hath resisted his will? Who has stopped God? Who has
resisted God's will? You can resist my will. I can
resist your will. We can come to blows over it.
There's not a man on this earth, Satan, and all the fallen angels
have never been able to resist the will of God. Can't do it. He said in Matthew 20, Can I
not do what I will with my own? He said in Matthew 8 too, the
leper said, Lord, if you will, He knew something, didn't he?
This old helpless, hopeless leper knew something. He said, Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. You can save me. You can save me. And that's what
every sinner comes to when God says, Lord, if you will, you
can save my soul. I know you can if you will. Has not the potter power over
the clay to do with it as he will? Can he not make one look
A vessel of mercy and one lump of vessel of wrath, if he so
will. Can he not do that? Yes, he can. His will is sovereign. Then there is the decreed will
of God. The decreed will of God is just this. Everything is going
to be done that he wills. And there is the command will
of God. And that's not always done. He commanded Israel. Listen now. He commanded Israel
to keep his law. Did they? You go through the
Scripture of what he commanded to be done, and they didn't do
it. But I tell you what, every one of His decreed will, every
bit of His decreed will is being done today. It is being done
exactly as He decreed it. It's not off track, not off course.
As He decreed it in eternity past, it's being done today.
And then there's the secret will of God, which no one knows but
God Himself. And there's the revealed will
of God, which belongs to us and to our children. That's what
it says over in Deuteronomy. And we know that it It was the will
of God to create the heavens and earth just as they are. God created the heavens, the
earth, the universe, the animals, Adam. He created everything according
to the good pleasure of his will, just as he willed it. God did that. All things exist
from the smallest microscopic germ to the highest mountain
according to God's will. He has determined the seasons.
He's determined all the times according to His will. Daniel says this in Daniel 2.21,
and he changes the times and the seasons. He does it. He does it according to His will. We see the will of God every
day in Providence. You and I, whether we've Maybe
you've recognized it or not. You're busy. You go through the
day. But everything we've witnessed
today is according to the will of God. The decreed will of God. We have witnessed it. We have
watched it unfold. I know most of it just unfolds
and we don't even recognize it. But we watch every day the will
of God being unfolded. That which He decreed back in
eternity. All of it. Every event that goes on every
day is God's will. Isn't that comforting? Don't
you find that comforting? It's not out of control, it's
according to His will. According to His will. Not even a sparrow, not even
a little sparrow that big fell to the ground today that God
Almighty, the God of heaven and earth, as great as He is, That
little sparrow did not die apart from the will of God. Now, if
a sparrow doesn't die apart from the will of God, surely no man
or woman dies. No human being dies that God
hasn't willed it, determined it. That gives me comfort, driving
down the road. You don't have to worry about
this happening, that happening. We use common sense, you know,
when we go about our daily lives. But now, if I die, it's according
to God's will. If a sparrow dies according to
his will, surely a man. How much more a man? Amos 3.6. Shall there be evil
in a city? That is for punishment. Talking
about punishment. Shall there be punishment in
a city and the Lord hath not done it? Daniel said in Daniel 4.35, He
does according to His will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay His hand or
say unto Him, What doest thou? His will is being done. Nothing
comes to pass but what He has willed. Even, now listen, even
the fall of Adam. Even the fall of Adam was according
to God's will. Now some people would just, they
just hate that. But we know, we know through
the Word of God that it was according to the eternal purpose and will
of God. I can't explain all that. I cannot explain a lot of things.
But I know it's so. It's so. I know that God does
not will sin. I know He does not will the act
of sin. But He does will the good that comes out of it. Joseph
said, You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. When they
by wicked hands took the Lord Jesus Christ and dealt Him to
a cross, they meant it for evil. But look at the good that came
out of it and that's coming out of it and shall come out of it.
Look at the good. Look at the multitude of sinners
that's going to be saved and in the kingdom of God through
these men crucifying Him. God, He permitted it. He permitted
it. He permitted it for good. For
good. The very fact that Christ was
the Lamb slain when? Before the foundation of the
world. That speaks of the will and foreknowledge of God. And
you've heard this said many times. There was a Savior before there
was a sinner. God had already willed and took us into counsel
and established this. And then it happened, just as
he decreed it. We would never know. We would
never know the fullness of God's justice. We would never know
the fullness of God's mercy. We would never know the fullness
of God's grace, except by the fall of Adam. Oh, they say the angels desire
to look into those things. They desire, it says, to look
into those things that you and I see and hear and believe. Except by the fall, we'd never
know that. And by the redemption that we have in Christ, we'd
never know the death of grace. We'd never be able to sing a
new song. Worthy is the Lamb. That song would never be sung.
We would never know the depth of God, who He is apart from
that thought and apart from the redemption that we have in Jesus
Christ. We'd never know Him. Lamentations 3, 37 says this,
Who is He that saith, and it cometh to pass when the Lord
commands it not? Who can say something and make
it come to pass if the Lord didn't command it? The answer to that
question? No one. And all that concerns
the Lord Jesus Christ, of what we have in Christ, is according
to the will of God. It was God's will that His Son... He didn't look all over Heaven
to see if He could find some virus by saying it on TV. He
didn't do that. It was always His Son. There
was no looking past His Son. There was no way of trying to
get around this, you know, trying to say, well, let's see if there's
another way so I don't have to send you. It's always been His
Son. Always been His Son. It has always been God's will
to honor His Son in the redemption of men and women like me and
you. Always. It was God's will for Him to
be the sacrifice for sin. It was his will. According to
his decree, will. He's not upset that he had to
do that. You listen to today's preaching and you'd think so,
but it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. How's
he going to give you the kingdom? His son's going to take your
place. His son's going to take your wrath. His son's going to
take your hell. His son's going to die in your
place, and it's your father's pleasure to give you the kingdom.
It pleased God to make you His people. How did He do that? In
Christ. Substitution. Satisfaction. That's
how He did it. It pleased God. It was according
to His will that His Son should become bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. That He should come into this
sewer, this world. Boy, if we could smell We could
smell the stench of this place as God could smell it. And this
is where he came. This is where he came. He came
that he might magnify the law as a man and make it honorable.
That his righteousness would be the righteousness of his sheep.
That his righteousness would be the righteousness by which
they are justified. And that his blood would be the
blood of atonement. And his blood would be the blood that cleanses
us from all our sins. clean in His sight. That we should
be holy in His sight. And it's only right. Now listen. It is only right for God to glorify
Himself. It's not right for me to do that.
I'd be lying. I'd be a liar. But it's only right for God to
glorify Himself. Such a person, such a person
must be glorified. Such a A person who is perfect
and holy must be glorified. It is only right. And God does
what is right. Everything He does is right.
And this glory belongs to no one else but God. He said, I
will not give my glory to another. I will not do that. It would be wrong for God to
give His glory to another because then it would be God lying. And it would be wrong for God
not to glorify such a person as He is. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ being
made unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption
is by the will of God. He is all those things to us
by the will of God. And our Lord, while on this earth
was perfectly, perfectly obedient to His Father's will. And you
know what? That's laid to our charge. That's
laid to our account. His perfect obedience to His
Father's will is just like me. I did it in Him. We did. We obeyed God in Him, in our
substitute. He said, My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me. That's my me. That's my life. That's the reason I exist. I
could just catch a little bit of that. I wish I could just
get a hold of that. Every day to get up and say my
me has to do my Father's will. Listen here in John 6.38. For
I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of him that sent me." Not that his will is any different, but
he's saying here, I came to do his will. And Luke 22, saying,
Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless,
not my will, but thine be done. Boy, if we could say that under
trials. Our Lord's sufferings were not
a matter of the Father's inability to deliver Him. It was just a matter of His will. And we need to remember, when
we go through trials, it's not a lack of ability. You know that.
It's just a matter of His will that we go through what we go
through and learn what we have to learn from it. And we know
that all our chastening He's willed every one of them. He's willed them all. God has
appointed all my afflictions according to the wise counsel
of His will. Job said, our afflictions do
not spring out of the dust. No. Their duration, their severity
are appointed by Him. Listen to this. I wrote this
down out of the Amplified in Job 23.14. For he performs that
which he has appointed for me. He performs that which he has
appointed for me, and of many such matters he is mindful. And all those things that are
appointed for me and you are good for us, and they are according
to the wise counsel of God's will. Now, we know also that the will
of God reaches into his eternal purpose, and that never changes. It never fluctuates. It never
varies. All the thousands of years that
has gone by, his will, his decreed will, not one time has varied,
not even a shadow. Not even a shadow. It's never added to or taken
away. Nothing will happen today that
God did not will in eternity before the world was. Nothing.
Nothing. One writer said this. This is
good. If God's will changed, it would prove imperfection in
His knowledge and wisdom, and that cannot be. If His will changed,
it would prove It would prove imperfection in His knowledge
and His wisdom, and that cannot be. It can't be. So we pray,
Thy will be done. And last of all, God's will concerning
His people is this, that none of them should perish. Bad day, awful day, whatever
kind of day you want, but God's will that you're not going to
perish. You may have a day that you're not going to, I'm going to say
it, that you're not going to perish. You're not going to perish. And this is the Father's will,
which hath sent me. This ought to perk up. This ought
to perk our ears up, shouldn't it? That of all which he hath given
me, I should lose nothing. He said, not even a hair of your
head will perish, but you'll raise it up again at the last
day. 2 Peter 3.9, Peter says this, the Lord is not slack concerning
His promises. He's not slack. As some men count
slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, His elect, not willing
that any should perish. That means you're not going to
perish. But that all should come to repentance. That they all
should be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
they all should be holy without blame before Him in love as I
read to you in Ephesians 1. That they would be one as the
Father and Son are one. That they would be with Christ
and behold His glory. The glory which He had with the
Father before the world was. We're going to see that. We are
going to see that. You know how I know that? because
he willed it. He said, Father, I will that
they be with me, that they behold my glory that I had with you
before the world was. That's what John said in time. Now knowing something of the
greatness and holiness of God, that he's all wise and that he
can do no wrong, he can will no wrong, and that through the
Lord Jesus Christ we are complete, We can pray. We can pray. Under the heaviest trials, thy
will be done. You know what? That's the only
will that needs to be done.