Prayer That Our Father's Will Be Done

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Luke 22; Lord's Day 49
Psalters: 85, 334, 290, 271
  1. What is our Father’s will.
    1. The will in a rational, moral being is the expression of a want or desire.
      1. God is a willing Being Whose intellect directs His will (not an impersonal power or blind fate).
      2. God’s will is always sovereign, so what He desires always comes to pass (Psalm 115:3).
      3. God’s will is good.
    2. God is one and His will is one.
      1. The will of God’s commands is His desire/pleasure for the conduct of His moral creatures (Romans 12:2).
      2. The will of God’s decree is His eternal plan for everything, which He always executes (Eph. 1:9-11; Rom. 9:19).
  2. Jesus teaches us, God’s children, to pray that we want our Father will to be done.
    1. This implies that we also have a will, i.e., what we want or desire.
    2. To pray that the will of God’s decree be done in our lives is to bow without complaint to His wise plan for us.
      1. God, in perfect wisdom, puts us, at every moment, in a specific place, which we are to accept humbly.
      2. This petition is an confession that we naturally oppose or dislike God’s will for us (Rom. 9:20).
    3. Concerning God’s will of command, we pray for the grace of obedience.
      1. Jesus suffered and died so we might renounce our own wills and delight to do God’s will (Ps. 40:8).
      2. We ask for the grace to discharge our duties properly and cheerfully (reluctance is not real obedience).
  3. The possibility comes in the way of our fellowship with Christ, so His mind is in us (Phil. 2:5).
    1. We ask that we want God’s will to be done as the angels in heaven want and do it perfectly.
    2. “As” is the kind of obedience (loving desire to please our wonderful Father), not the degree of obedience.
    3. Concerning the will of God’s decree, we want to do it “without murmuring.”
    4. Concerning the will of God’s command we want to do so “willingly and faithfully.”