And please turn to the back of your psalter handle to page 61. We'll be looking at the Heidelberg Catechism this morning after we read God's Word, page 61, Lord's Day 49. And once you've marked that, please open your Bibles to the Book of Acts. Book of Acts, chapter 20. In the book of Acts, chapter 20, we're going to look at just a brief peek into the life of Paul as he was on his way to Jerusalem. Picking up in chapter 20, verse 22, in the middle of his discourse with the Ephesian elders saying his farewells. He says to them, and now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardship are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Then we skip down to chapter 21, verse 10, After he's arrived at Caesarea, he's taken his sea voyage. 21 verse 10, after we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, The Holy Spirit says in this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. And Paul answered, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I'm ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, The Lord's will be done. The Lord's will be done, which makes us and draws us to the Lord's prayer, which we are considering. which we find in Matthew chapter 6 beginning in verse 9. This then 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. Here ends the reading of God's word and we ask him now to bless it to us. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you've communicated to us and revealed Yourself to us in Your Word. Not only who You are, but who You are specifically in Jesus Christ, our Lord, what He's come to do and what He's come to equip us to do. We pray, Father, that You would bless the reading of Your Word this day and that You would bless it preached to Your people. That by Your Spirit, You would indeed apply it to our hearts, change our hearts, change our wills. That your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We're looking today at the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, which we find addressed in Heidelberg, question and answer 49, which we will read responsibly. It's Lord's Day 49, question and answer 124. What does the third request mean? Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, means help us and all men to reject our own wills and to obey your will without any backtalk. Your will alone is good. Help everyone carry out the work he is called to as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven. People of God, we all know a strong-willed child when we meet one. Perhaps you were one. The ones who test the limits, who consider our rules to be just good suggestions, who will not agree to obey until they've negotiated the terms of their compliance, and who show great creativity and resourcefulness when doing the things that they want to do, not necessarily what we want them to do. That's a common image. That's a common experience. Through faith in Jesus Christ, as we've learned, we are children of God. And with this petition, Jesus addresses the fact that we, as his children, are strong-willed children. We want to do what we want to do, not what God wants us to do. Therefore, in the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, when Jesus teaches us to pray, Our Father in heaven, your will be done. He is teaching us to pray as children who need to have our wills corrected. And when we pray this petition rightly, we're going to see that we are praying for repentance. And as we consider what this means, we'll see that this petition has an earthly necessity. We need it. It has a comprehensive nature. And it has a saving nexus. I'm sorry, my alliteration probably gets lost on you. Saving nexus, it has a gospel-centeredness to it. It's bound to the gospel. So first we begin with this earthly necessity. The specific language of the petition actually makes this clear to us. Your will be done on earth. Before we consider what that means, we need to just step back and think for a moment what it means that Jesus is speaking of the will of God. When we consider the will of God, we tend to think of it and we categorize it into two broad categories, the secret will of God and the revealed will of God. This comes from Scripture. Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. And the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever. That we will walk according to his law. So the secret things that belong to the Lord refer to the totality of all of God's purposes and plans. All that He has determined to do. And it's beyond our ability of our minds to grasp. Paul in Romans chapter 11 exclaims, Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable His judgments and His ways beyond tracing out. We can't grasp the secret will of God. His will is hidden from us. And it remains secret from us unless he chooses to reveal it to us or until he accomplishes it and we experience it. You know that experience of 20-20 hindsight when it all makes sense. You've experienced the will of God accomplished. And by this secret will, which we call his degree, God has determined the end from before the beginning of the beginning. And he's determined every means that he'll use to accomplish that end. And in this sense, in this sense, God's will is always done. How could it be otherwise? God is God. God is all-powerful. He can do, in fact, he does all that he wants to do. The psalmist in 135 says, the Lord does whatever pleases him. In the heavens and on the earth and the sea and in the depths. There's no place that the will of God is not accomplished. So why then does Jesus teach us to pray your will be done on earth when clearly all that God decrees will be done? Is this petition even necessary? I venture to say that some of us have asked this very question. Usually when we try to convince ourselves we don't need to pray. But the question betrays a misunderstanding of God's will. Now, this petition is not necessary in the sense that God needs us to pray in order for Him to accomplish His will. His accomplishment of His decree is not dependent upon us. And it's futility to believe that in the process of praying and we're somehow going to bend His will or change His will so that His decree is changed. God's decree will be done, whether we pray for it or whether we don't. In fact, there's things in life that He's decreed that we ought not pray for, such as the death of a loved one, or the suffering that comes for the sake of the gospel. We don't pray for those things, but they come. And when they come, we pray that God would protect, deliver, restore. And that he would make us patient and help us to persevere and give us comfort in the face of his decree as it unfolds in ways that are uncomfortable for us. And we do this, we pray this way in the face of these difficult circumstances in life, Knowing, trusting that God will have his way and that his way will be good. We confess in question and answer 124 that God's will alone is good. Well, how do we know? It doesn't always feel good. Well, Jesus made it clear that no one is good except God alone. And if God alone is good, God's will alone is good. so that everything he wants, everything he decrees, everything he does, is good. And we can also know that God's good will means and brings good to his people. He has given us this assurance in Romans chapter 8, verse 28, In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. In all things, God works good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. That's our assurance in the face of the decree of God. So if our prayers will in no way change the decree of God, why then does Jesus teach us to pray, May your will be done on earth. Because this petition is necessary for us. It's necessary for us to pray that we will do God's will on earth. And that leads us to the second category of God's will, the revealed will of God. That which belongs to us and to our children forever. And that refers to his law, his precepts, his decrees, his commands. Those things he's told us to do, those things he intends for us to obey. And he first revealed this to Adam in the garden when he told him what he must do in order to inherit eternal life in the kingdom of heaven and to sanctify the name of his God. He told him what to do. And God allowed by his secret will, for reasons that we cannot ever begin to imagine, he allowed in his secret will that Adam would disobey his revealed will, that he would sin, and that he would deprive himself and all of his descendants of the willingness and the power to do God's will. The result, according to Romans chapter 3, is there's no one righteous. No, not one. There's no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that includes you and me. God's revealed will, his law, summarized in the Ten Commandments and expounded throughout the scriptures, even as we read this morning from Titus, makes known to us God's will for how he would have us live on earth as his people. What makes the petition, your will be done on earth, necessary has to do with whether we on earth will obey what God has revealed for us to do. Now we hear this this morning. Your will be done on earth. We hear this as the children of God, saved by grace, through faith, in Christ, children of God. We're no longer of this world, But we're still in this world because God has not yet taken us to glory. We've been freed from the tyranny of the devil, yet the devil still opposes us and accuses us because God has not yet cast him into the lake of fire. And we are forgiven of all of our sins, yet we are still easily entangled by sin because we're not yet glorified and made holy, unwilling, and unable to sin. We're saints, yet sinners, until glory will be strong-willed children. Therefore, the Apostle Paul exhorts us in Galatians chapter 5, he says, Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of your sinful nature. The sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature and they're in conflict so that you do not do what you want. This is the battle within the saints, the ongoing battle that we will face as sinners and saints in this world and why it is necessary for us to pray your will be done on earth. Answer 124 rightly teaches us that by this petition we are asking God to help us and all men to reject our own wills and to obey your will without any backtalk, without any murmuring, without any negotiating, without any stalling. The old version says without any gainsaying, anything that tries to divert God from his purposes. This is why I say that when we pray this petition, we are first and foremost praying for repentance. Now please understand what I'm saying. This petition is not for our salvation. We must be saved to pray it. We could not pray it apart from being saved. We could not pray to our Father in Heaven. We could not be concerned with His will unless we were saved. But with this petition, as the people of God who are saved, we are to pray through a lifetime of repentance. Praying that God will grant us daily success in this battle. The battle summarized in our Heidelberg questions 88 to 90. You get a double dip today. I didn't think we'd be going here, but we are. We ask this question, and how many things does true repentance and conversion consist? In two things. The dying of the old man, what Paul calls the sinful nature, and the making alive of the new, life in the spirit. And then we ask, what is the dying of the old man? heartfelt sorrow for sin causing us to hate and turn from it always more and more and what is the making alive of the new man heartfelt joy in God through Christ causing us to take delight in living according to the will of God in all good works this is repentance and it's the ongoing battle in every believer on the earth and it is this that we pray for when we pray your will be done on earth. Now in this petition we are asking for more than help and it's an unfortunate translation in our blue Psalter hymnal that we're asking God to help us. We're not asking for help in the sense that we're able in our own strength to fight some of the battle but not quite win to run some of the race but not quite finish. This is not a petition for God to put His finishing touches on our best efforts. In this petition, we confess our total dependence on God and ask Him for what He alone can do. With this petition, we ask God to uphold us in the good fight of the faith. That He will enable us to want to and be able to flee from sin and pursue righteousness. to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily ensnares and to run with perseverance the race set before us. To repent continually. See, praying for repentance is an earthly necessity for all the saints, but not as an end to itself. Answer 124 goes on, and now I'm reading from an older version. He goes on to set forth the purpose for praying this prayer. The necessary result of God answering this prayer. And what is that purpose? That purpose is that so that everyone may fulfill his office and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels do in heaven. That everyone may fulfill his office and calling. Now this is language that we don't use often. It's categories that we may be vaguely familiar with. But taken together, it's a way of speaking of the totality of our lives. And therefore, in lifting this petition to God, we are lifting the petition with a comprehensive nature. It deals with every aspect of our living. Each and every one who trusts in Jesus Christ for his salvation holds what is called the general office of believer. And each one is given the title Christian. And in the catechism we ask ourselves, why are you called a Christian? And we answer, because by faith I am joined to Christ. And I share in His anointing. Therefore I am anointed to confess His name as prophet. To present myself to Him as a Thanksgiving offering. The sacrifice of thanks as priest. And to strive with a good conscience against sin and the devil in this life and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity as king. The general office of believer, prophet, priest, and king. We are anointed to live and do these things for the sake of the kingdom of God, for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And when we pray your will be done on earth, we are praying that God would cause and grant us to fulfill this office first and foremost. Willingly and faithfully. According to his will. I don't know how often we think about our calling, our office, when we get up in the morning to face our day. Your will be done on earth is the petition by which we frame ourselves to that reality. And we ask our God to cause us to live that office. So that there's no occasion for offense. There's no occasion for people to slander our God because of us. We are Christians. And we have an office to fill. Now, some of you have been or will be called to a special office. And that's not because you're so special. It's because God has something special for you to do. Something that not everyone is called to do. This may be in the church as a minister, as an elder, as a deacon. This may be in the civil realm as one who governs or serves in a particular way. This may be in your own household as a parent. But whatever that office that God has added unto you, in addition to your office as a general believer, when you pray your will be done on earth, you're praying that God would cause you and grant you to fulfill this office as well, willingly and faithfully, according to His will. Now, any special office could also be your calling in life. You've heard that word. You've wondered, some of you young people, what's my calling in life? What am I supposed to do? but calling is not restricted to special offices everyone has a calling before God God has a calling on everyone's life and he normally calls us according to the gifts he has given us and he calls us to be good stewards of those gifts in service to him and to other people now according to his secret will things that are unknown to us which we witness as it unfolds. He gives us attributes. He gives us aptitudes and skills. And he places us in the context of circumstances of family and location and church and friends and education and opportunities and God-given desires. And all those things he gives us, he makes us to be who he wants us to be. And to these things, for the people of God, Christ adds spiritual gifts. Something particular for the body of Christ. And in these things God's secret will is done in us and by faith we're called to be content with what He's made us to be. And by faith we're called to turn to Him in prayer for how we are to use it. Whether that be in a profession or in a trade. whether that be in the home, or in the office, or in the field. Jesus teaches us to pray your will be done on earth, asking God to cause and grant us the willingness to obey his revealed will and to step forward in faith to do what he's called us to be. This calling is not found in your parents' wishes or in your boss's plan, in your peer group's pressure or in society's demands. And it's not found by asking God to find a place for us. Rather, it's found through praying this petition. Asking God to cause and grant us to reject our own wills and to obey His will so that we might carry out the work He's called us to do. He has created us and equipped us in Christ for the place He has chosen. And we will only be ourselves when we are finally there, obeying God's will, His revealed will, and fulfilling our calling in service to God and our neighbor. Doing all that we can to do what He's created us to be. Is this not what we heard from the account of Paul on his way to Jerusalem? He was compelled by the Spirit to do what God had made him to be, an apostle to the Gentiles. His only purpose was to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus had given him. His will was conformed to God's will for him so much so that he was ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Now in Paul's case, his office was his calling. that may not be the case in your life. This petition in the Lord's Prayer can lead to anything, even suffering and death. But it is also the petition that prepares us for everything. For we know that by praying for obedience to God's will, He will give us only good, for His will alone is good. Now, Jesus completes this petition with a reference to the standard to which we are to aspire in our obedience to God's will. He tells us to pray that our Father's will be done on earth as in heaven, for no such petition is necessary. Now, in Psalm 103, which we're going to sing a little bit later, we are reminded that there are no strong-willed creatures in heaven. Since rebellious Satan was cast out, angels never test the limits. They know God's law is his law, not gentle guidelines. They always agree and obey God's will without negotiating, without complaint, without hesitation. And they show great creativity and resourcefulness in doing what he wants them to do. With this petition that your will be done on earth as in heaven, we are asking God to cause us to obey. as willingly and faithfully as the angels do in heaven. A standard that pulls us up short with the reality and the severity of our need for this petition. If those two words aren't enough, we just need to remember Jesus' warning in chapter 7, verse 21 of Matthew. Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. Those are strong words. Warnings intended to wake us up to the fact that neither lip service nor even miracles in the name of our Lord are what will gain us the kingdom of heaven. What is required is perfect obedience to the will of God. Such knowledge will cause us to despair. In fact, we may find ourselves saying, why bother? Unless we turn away from any trust in our own ability to obey and turn to seek our righteousness through the obedience of another. And this we can do when we remember the saving nexus, the gospel dependence of this petition. The Lord Jesus taught this prayer to his disciples. He taught it to us through his disciples. And he taught it early in his ministry. but with full knowledge of the end to which he was moving. He knew why he had come, and he told them in John chapter 6, I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. He came to do what Adam failed to do. He came to do what we refused to do, even as God's children. And he perfectly obeyed and fulfilled the will of his Father in heaven, even unto death. And he did so to sanctify the name of his Father. He did so to open the way for all the elect to come into the kingdom of heaven, that his kingdom might come. And by his obedience, he paid for our rebellion to the will of God. Now throughout his ministry, he knew where his obedience would lead. He signified it to his disciples. He signifies it to us today in the Lord's Supper that He instituted on the night of His betrayal, the day before He was crucified. And immediately after instituting this sacrament for His people, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, If it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Jesus knew what kind of cup He was talking about, the cup of God's wrath, something that would be poured out against the sins of God's people. And he knew that to obey his Father's will would require him to drink that cup to the bottom. Not only would he die a horrible and accursed death on a cross, he would experience the forsaking of his Father, the torments of hell as his Father turned his face away on the cross. Three times in the garden Jesus prayed, and three times he conformed his will on earth to that of his Father in heaven, not as I will, but as you will. And by his obedience to God's will, his Father's will, Jesus accomplished the salvation of all who will trust in him alone for their salvation. And he was raised from the dead for our justification that we would be forever made right with God. And he ascended to the right hand of God the Father in heaven where he continually pleads our case. On what basis? On the basis of his perfect obedience in our place. And there he received the promised Holy Spirit whom he has sent to us as a further guarantee that our eternal security is intact in Jesus Christ. And with the sending of that Spirit into the lives and hearts of His people, He has granted the commencement, the beginnings of this obedience to which we're called. Because it's the Holy Spirit who works in us to will and to do that which is pleasing to God, that which is according to God's will. Through faith in Christ, we know the beginnings of this petition being answered. And by His Spirit, through the Word preached and the Gospel displayed in the sacraments and partaken in faith, He sustains and strengthens our faith, by which we pray. We pray for repentance and we step forward to do what God has called us to be. And we do so with the confidence that He who began a good work in us on earth will carry it on to completion in the day of Christ Jesus when our obedience to the will of our Father will be as willing and as faithful as the angels in heaven. Let's give thanks to God and let us pray. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have made every provision for us, your people. Jesus reminds us so clearly and so pointedly that we need to be a prayerful people. And that we need in the fight which you've called us to fight by faith, we need your work in us to be sustained and to overcome. So Lord, help us to pray according to the Lord's Prayer. And in particular today, we think about the prayer that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray, Father, that by your Spirit, you would help us to pray it aright. That we would see our willfulness. And that we would be in prayer to ask you to grant us and cause us to reject it. And to embrace and submit to your will for us. That we would pursue obedience to your law as you set it before us. That we would in faith step out into the life that stands before us, Lord, knowing that you have equipped us to be able to fulfill our calling, Lord, to help us to do what you called us to be. Thank you, Father, for hearing our prayer. And we thank you for the provision of Jesus Christ, not only once and for all on the cross, Lord, but even today as we partake on Him through faith by the power of Your Spirit that we would be nourished and strengthened for the walk that we walk in this world. We thank You for these things and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.