Your Will Be Done

Introduction

This morning, as we return once again to Matthew’s Gospel and continue our study of the Lord’s Prayer, we remain in verse 10 moving from the second petition, “Your kingdom come,” to the third: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Last week we saw that when Christ teaches us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, He teaches us to desire the advance of the God’s kingdom meaning that we desire and pray for the spread of the gospel, the increasing rule of Christ in the lives of His people, and ultimately the day when His kingdom is revealed in its fullness. The third petition follows naturally from that truth. If we are praying for the reign of the King, then we must also be concerned with the will of the King. This movement, as all of the prayer has been thus far, is still focused on God: His name, His kingdom, His will. As Pink observes:

The Lord’s Prayer Chapter 4: The Third Petition

When God’s Kingdom really comes to one’s soul, he must, of necessity, be brought into obedience to its laws and ordinances. It is worse than useless to call God our King if His commandments are disregarded by us.

This morning we will consider what Christ means regarding this particular petition. It is important to understand what Scripture means by the will of God, what we are actually asking the Father to accomplish in us when we pray these words, and then why Christ gives us the remarkable standard, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Working through this petition should develop an understanding that it concerns more than simply accepting the circumstances God places before us; it reaches into our knowledge of His will, our willingness to submit to it, and our obedience to what He has revealed. Scripture repeatedly connects doing God's will with obedience from the heart. At the same time it also places before us the willing obedience of heaven as the pattern toward which we are directed.

But before we begin to work through those truths, we want once again to keep this petition grounded in the context in which Christ gave it. So, as we have done throughout this section on prayer, we will read Matthew 6:5–15 in its entirety.

With that in mind, if you have not already done so, please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, and once you have found your place...

Text

Please stand for the reading of God’s holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete and certain word:

Matthew 6:5–15 LSB

“And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore, do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’] “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Gracious Father, as we come now to Your Word, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts willing to obey. Teach us not merely to know Your will, but to love what You love and to desire what pleases You. By Your Spirit, expose the places where our own will resists Yours, and conform us increasingly to Christ, who perfectly delighted to do the will of His Father. Give us grace to receive Your Word with humility and faith, and let it accomplish in us what You intend. We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Your Will Be Done

As you will recall verse 10 opened with our prayer for the kingdom and a kingdom necessarily involves the rule of a king, and the rule of a king necessarily involves his will. This means that if we are asking for God’s kingdom to advance, then we must also desire that His will increasingly govern those of us who belong to His kingdom.

But the words raise an important question. Is not the will of God always done? If God is sovereign, if His purposes cannot fail, and if—as we saw last week—there is no rival throne capable of overthrowing His rule, then what are we asking when we pray that His will would be done?

Scripture itself requires us to make a distinction here. The Bible speaks of the will of God in more than one sense. Theologians have commonly described this as the distinction between God’s decretive will and His preceptive will, or between His secret will and His revealed will. Pink makes this distinction in his treatment of the petition:

The Lord’s Prayer Chapter 4: The Third Petition

His secret or decretive will is the rule of His own actions: in creation (

Similarly Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley describe them in this way:

Reformed Systematic Theology Volume One

We may also express this distinction, perhaps most accurately, as that between God’s perceptive and His decretive will. The first describes what God instructs us to do; the second what He has decreed to take place. God’s perceptive will is “the rule of men’s duty,” John Gill explained, and “every sin is a transgression of it.”

This is not merely a theological distinction imposed upon Scripture. Moses gives us its foundation in Deuteronomy 29:29 ““The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

There are things God has purposed that will and do remain hidden from us until He sovereignly chooses to reveal or bring them to pass. Those things belong to wholly to God; this is God’s decretive will, His sovereign purpose—what God has determined will certainly occur. Isaiah 46:10 records Yahweh saying: “Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My counsel will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’,” Daniel 4:35 says ““And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can strike against His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” So in the sense of God’s decretive will we see that God’s will is never incomplete because nothing takes place outside His sovereign providence, and no creature possesses the power to overturn what He has determined.

As we think of this we realize that in Christ teaching us to pray, “Your will be done,” He cannot primarily mean, Father, please succeed in accomplishing Your eternal decree. God does not require our prayers in order to make His sovereign purpose effective. His decretive will is done.

This is where we must understand that Scripture also speaks of the will of God as that which He has revealed and commanded, and this will is violated every time men sin. These are the things that He has clearly revealed to us in His Word so that we might obey Him

Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;” In Ephesians 6:6 believers are instructed “not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,” David prays in Psalm 143:10 “Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”

Those commands would make little sense if the only meaning of God’s will were His sovereign decree. God does not command us to discover His secret purposes and make them happen. He commands us to know, love, and obey what He has revealed which is the primary force of the petition before us.

When we pray “Your will be done,” we are asking that the revealed will of God would increasingly be known, loved, and obeyed on earth. We are asking that God would work in us and in others so that His commands are no longer merely heard but gladly followed. Pink summarizes what is being asked by defining that when:

The Lord’s Prayer Chapter 4: The Third Petition

We do the will of God… we regulate our own thoughts and conduct by His commandments. Such is our bounden duty, and it should ever be our fervent desire and diligent endeavor so to do. We mock God if we present this request and then fail to make the conforming of ourselves to His revealed will our main business.

And notice again where Christ places the emphasis:

“Your will.”

Not mine. Not ours, YOURS

That is where this petition begins to press upon us. Often we think that we are in alignment with God’s will because we are not engaging in activities or desires that what we would deem as evil in an obvious sense, but the conflict is often much more subtle. We want God’s will when His will agrees with ours. We are perfectly willing for God to direct our lives so long as He directs them where we had already intended to go and we are happy to submit to His commands when as long as those commands cost us little, do not confront our cherished desires, and do not require painful surrender.

But the petition does not say, Father, let Your will be done when it agrees with mine, it says: “Your will be done.”

In Jim Scott Orrick's commentary on the Baptist Catechism, he identifies the heart of sinful rebellion as our desire for our will to prevail, and observes that genuine submission to God rests upon trust in Him. This is the matter at the heart of this petition, not merely whether we know the commandments of God, but rather whether do we trust the God who gave those commandments enough that we will desire His will above our own.

This recognition ensures that we understand that the petition is first an active desire that what God has revealed as good, holy, and pleasing would actually be done in us and that requires that we know His will. Which is where Scripture, not our feelings, must govern us.

There is a great deal of confusion among Christians about “finding God’s will.” The phrase is often used as though God’s will were a hidden path that we must somehow discover through impressions, circumstances, or signs. Yet the overwhelming emphasis of Scripture is that God has already made His moral will known in His Word.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians 5:15–17 “Therefore look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” and he wrote to the Romans 12:1–2 “Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.” As we read Psalm 119 we notice that it continually asks God for understanding, not because His commands are absent, but because our hearts and minds need grace to receive and obey what He has spoken.

So part of praying “Your will be done” is praying, Father, teach me what You have said. Open my eyes to understand Your Word. Correct the places where my thinking does not agree with Yours. Give me a heart that does not merely know Your commands but desires to obey them.

Jim Scott Orrick captures this well by describing the petition as asking God to make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to His will. Those three ideas give us a useful way of understanding the true grandness of this request. We need God to teach us His will, to incline us toward His will, and to strengthen us to perform His will.

That dependence is important because Christ is not teaching us to pray, Father, show me Your will and then I will handle the rest even our obedience requires God’s grace. Philippians 2:13 tells believers: “[That] it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Notice both sides of that statement. God works in us to will and to work. We need grace not only to do what God commands but even to desire what God commands. We know that sin has deeply affected our affections, but our actions have not been left unmarred by sins damage. We need the Spirit to change what we love as well as what we do.

By praying “Your will be done,” we are confessing that our dependence is wholly upon God. We are asking the Father to reveal His will through His Word, to incline our hearts toward it, and to give us strength to walk in it.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven

However, Christ does not simply teach us to pray that the Father’s will would be done. He adds a standard for the manner in which that will is to be carried out: “On earth as it is in heaven.” The petition therefore concerns not only what we do, but how we do it. We are asking that the obedience rendered to God on earth in our lives would increasingly resemble the obedience already rendered to Him in heaven.

Scripture gives us several glimpses of that heavenly obedience. Psalm 103:20–21 “Bless Yahweh, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, Obeying the voice of His word! Bless Yahweh, all you His hosts, You who serve Him, doing His will.” Notice what characterizes those who serve Him. They hear the voice of God in His Word, and they act. There is no picture here of hesitation, bargaining, selective obedience, or resistance. They perform His word because of the simple fact that it is His word.

That same picture appears in Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees the Lord seated upon His throne, high and lifted up, while the seraphim cover their faces and cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is Yahweh of hosts.” Their reverence does not produce inactivity. When one of them is sent to him in Isaiah 6:6 “Then one of the seraphim flew to me…” The scene combines the reverence that the seraphim have towards God with the readiness to respond in obedience. In other words, they recognize the holiness and majesty of God, and they respond without reluctance.

Revelation gives us similar pictures. In Revelation 5:14 “And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.” In Revelation 7:15 ““For this reason, they [the redeemed] are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary; and He who sits on the throne will dwell over them.” Heaven is characterized by willing and immediate compliance with God’s will. His will is gladly embraced, His glory is delighted in, and His commands are carried out without the resistance that marks us in this fallen world.

Pink summarizes the force of the comparison by observing:

The Lord’s Prayer Chapter 4: The Third Petition

We may be sure that it is executed neither tardily nor fitfully, neither partially nor fragmentarily. In the heavenly courts, God’s will is performed gladly and joyfully.

Orrick makes the same point in his treatment of the petition, describing the obedience of the angels as immediate, joyful, and complete. So when Christ teaches us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking for more than outward compliance.

We are asking for obedience that is willing to respond to God’s will.

We are asking for obedience that is responds immediately.

We are asking for obedience that is from our whole heart and that delights int the One who commanded that obedience.

It becomes clear that this is an essential understanding because external conformity by itself is not and never has never been the righteousness Christ has been describing in the Sermon on the Mount. We have seen this repeatedly since Matthew 5:20. Christ said that the righteousness of His kingdom people must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, and then He showed us why. The issue is not merely whether murder is avoided, but what is taking place in the heart when anger is cherished. It is not merely whether adultery is avoided, but what is happening within the desires of the heart. It is not merely whether we give, pray, or fast, but whether those acts are directed toward the glory of God or toward the praise of men.

The same principle is present here. It is possible to obey outwardly while inwardly resenting the command, to do what God requires while wishing He had required something else, it is even possible to submit externally while the heart remains resistant. But when Christ teaches us to pray that God’s will would be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” He is directing us beyond mere compliance. He is teaching us to desire a heart that agrees with God.

That brings us once again to the standard Christ has already established in Matthew 5:48 ““Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Once again we see that the standard has not changed.

We are weak, but Christ does not lower the requirement because we are weak. Here again He places before us a heavenly standard. We are to desire that the will of God be done on earth as it is done in heaven. It is the same standard and that truth should expose us because which one of us obeys God willingly, immediately, and wholeheartedly every time His Word confronts us?

The answer is simple, none of us can. Christ is not teaching us simply to resolve, I will do better. I will obey faster. I will become more sincere. The very fact that He teaches us to pray for this reminds us that the obedience He requires cannot be produced independently of His grace. Which is what we saw earlier in Philippians 2:13: “it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” God must work not merely upon our actions but upon our wills. We need Him to give us the desire as well as the strength.

This petition is not simply describing some distant ideal, it is the direction of sanctification for the believer. We know that we will not reach sinless perfection in this life. Scripture does not teach that we do. Yet Christ does not therefore teach us to lower our standards and become comfortable with delayed obedience, partial obedience, or reluctant obedience simply because we know perfection awaits us in glory.

On the contrary, we pray toward the standard. Father, make us increasingly willing to do Your will, quicker to obey when Your Word speaks, less divided in my loyalties. Teach us to obey not grudgingly, but gladly, to hold You in the same reverence as heaven does, and to make our lives increasingly reflect the rule of the kingdom to which we belong.

There is also something important in the phrase “on earth.” This is where our obedience is presently lived out and it is the place that true obedience to the King will costs us something. This is where temptation remains, where competing desires remain, and where sin still presses against us. Heaven is the place where God’s will is done without rebellion; earth is presently the place where rebellion continues. And Christ teaches us to pray that something of the obedience of heaven would increasingly be seen here.

That begins with the people who are praying the prayer.

We cannot pray, “Your will be done on earth,” while excluding our own lives from the request. We cannot pray for God’s will to govern the church, the culture, our families, or the nations while quietly retaining the right to disregard His will ourselves. The petition begins to reach into every area of our lives because God’s revealed will speaks to every area of our obedience. Our worship. Our marriages. Our parenting, work, speech, use of money, forgiveness of others, priorities and our willingness to serve because here is no legitimate category in our lives as Christians that can be labeled, This belongs to me and not to the will of God.

And yet there is another dimension to this petition that we cannot ignore. Jim Scott Orrick is helpful to distinguish this dimension when he writes:

When we ask that we might know and obey God’s will, we are primarily thinking about God’s revealed will. But in asking For to enable us to submit to His will, we are considering God’s secret will. We know and obey God’s revealed will; we submit to God’s secret will...We submit toe God’s secret will when we trust Him and continue to follow Him through unpleasant circumstances patiently and without complaining.

And nowhere is that submission displayed more perfectly than in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

As He approached the cross in Gethsemane, knowing the suffering that stood before Him, He prayed: Matthew 26:39 “… My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.””

The One Who Perfectly Did the Father’s Will

As we bring this petition to a close, the words of Christ in Gethsemane bring everything we have considered into focus. Jesus did not merely teach His disciples to pray, “Your will be done.” He lived those words perfectly.

He said in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” And as He approached the cross, knowing fully what obedience would cost Him, He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

That is the obedience this petition ultimately sets before us.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Christ has continually pressed us beyond outward conformity and into the heart. Matthew 5:20 revealed the need for a righteousness surpassing that of the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew 5:48 gave us the standard itself: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And now, in Matthew 6:10, Christ teaches us to desire that the Father’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

If we hear those words rightly, we cannot leave confident in our own obedience.

We do not obey willingly, immediately, wholeheartedly, and joyfully at all times. We resist. We delay. We struggle against providence. We sometimes know what God has commanded and still find our hearts reluctant to follow.

That is why this petition must do more than call us to try harder. It must drive us again to Christ.

The One who commands our obedience is the One who perfectly obeyed in our place. Philippians 2:8 tells us that He “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” His obedience was complete. His submission to the Father never wavered. And at the cross, He bore the judgment deserved by those whose wills have stood opposed to God.

So Christ is not merely the example we attempt to imitate. He is the righteousness upon which we depend.

Romans 5:19 tells us, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be appointed righteous.” Our acceptance before the Father does not rest upon the perfection of our submission. It rests upon the perfect obedience of Christ.

But those who are united to Christ are not left unchanged. The Spirit who joins us to the Son also works within us, shaping our desires, our affections, and our actions so that we increasingly want what our Savior wanted: the will of the Father.

And that brings us back to the petition itself.

When we pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking the Father to do in us what we cannot do for ourselves. We are asking Him to teach us His will through His Word, to incline our hearts toward it, to strengthen us to obey it, and to give us grace to trust Him when His providence leads us where we would not have chosen to go.

We are not asking that God lower His standard to accommodate our weakness.

We are asking Him to conform us increasingly to the One who met that standard perfectly, leaving us with both conviction and hope.

Conviction, because the will of God must govern more than our outward actions; it must reach the heart.

And hope, because the obedience we lack is found perfectly in Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is at work in those who belong to Him.

So as we pray the words Christ placed upon our lips, may they be more than familiar words. May they increasingly become the true desire of our hearts:

“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Closing Prayer

Our Father in heaven, we thank You for the clarity and sufficiency of Your Word and for teaching us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Forgive us for the many ways we have preferred our own desires, delayed obedience, resisted Your commands, and struggled against Your providence.

Teach us Your will through Your Word. Incline our hearts to love what You command, strengthen us to obey willingly and wholeheartedly, and give us grace to trust You when Your purposes remain hidden from us. Make our lives increasingly reflect the obedience of heaven.

Above all, we thank You for Jesus Christ, who perfectly did Your will and became obedient even to death on the cross. We rest not in the perfection of our obedience, but in His righteousness. By Your Spirit, conform us increasingly to the Son so that the prayer He taught us becomes the true desire of our hearts.

May Your name be hallowed, Your kingdom come, and Your will be done in us and through us, for Your glory.

In Christ’s name we pray, amen.