Thy Will Be Done

Thy Will Be Done
Matthew 6: 9 – 13 AND James 4: 1 – 3


I. Introduction.

Last Sunday, I announced my intention to lead our church in 40 days of prayer. I will have my first meeting with our Long Range Planning Committee this afternoon to begin preparing for these 40 days of prayer. We are going to provide our church with a list of things to pray for and some suggestions for how we can pray together for 40 days.

In short, we are not ready to begin the 40 days of prayer. BUT…Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to begin praying right now. I think we will be ready to present something to the church in about two or three weeks. That means, if you begin praying right now…you can actually pray for 54 to 61 days! That can’t hurt anything!

Perhaps it will be a good idea to pray for the Long Range Planning Committee as we work to organize and prepare for 40 days of prayer.

For the past two weeks, the Long Range Planning Committee has been looking back over all the comments made by our church members during our two Town Hall Meetings. We are organizing those comments into groups, or categories. For example, we received many comments about Sunday morning worship, our need to do outreach, and the physical condition of our aging buildings. I anticipate that these will be three of the categories we will pray about in our 40 days of prayer.

Some of the categories we will ask the church to pray about will be very “touchy” subjects. When I say “touchy,” I’m trying to avoid using words like “emotional” and “controversial.”

Music is a very emotional issue. There are many different opinions about music in our congregation.

The condition of our buildings can be a controversial issue. Our oldest building has been here since 1927. It has been the location for thousands of baptisms and hundreds of weddings. Doing something with the building where someone’s parents were baptized and married can stir up controversy.

This is the reason why we need to pray. Ultimately, I am asking you as a church to change. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we will keep getting what we’ve been getting. Are you comfortable with the results we’ve been getting as a church?

The church we are today is a smaller church than the church we were just ten years ago. We actually grew as a church in my first two years as pastor. We stopped the decline. We experienced a brief period in which new members were joining every Sunday and people were being baptized. We even had to create a new Sunday School department for all the young adults joining our church. Then, our community started losing jobs to layoffs, plant closure and jobs transferred out of town. That happened in 2008, and we have never regained our momentum.

I am of the opinion that we need to change something. But, I don’t know what. I mean that in all sincerity. I do not have the answer. But, I know who does have the answer. I do not know what the future holds. But, I know who holds the future.

This is why we need to pray. God has a plan for our church. We may not know what that plan is, but God is willing to show it to us. Therefore, we need to pray. It may seem impossible to us to navigate the emotion and controversy of change. But, it is not impossible for God. Nothing is impossible for God.

As I think about praying for the future, I am reminded of a phrase that Jesus used in his prayers… “Thy will be done.”


Matthew 6: 9 – 13.
9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'(NIV)


II. The Model Prayer.

Some people like to split theological hairs and say this ought to be called the Model Prayer and John 17 ought to be called the Lord’s Prayer. They prefer to call this the Model Prayer, because this is one of two places where Jesus taught his disciples how to pray.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the Model Prayer is a part of the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke’s Gospel, it appears in a completely different context.

In Luke, the disciples watch as Jesus gets up early in the morning to go off by himself to pray. The disciples know how to pray. After all, they probably grew up in good Jewish families and learned how to pray from their parents and from their synagogues. But, there is something special about the way Jesus prays… And the disciples notice that.

So, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him how to pray, “Lord, teach us how to pray like you do…” And Jesus gives them a model for their prayers.

I find it significant that Jesus gives his disciples the Model Prayer in both contexts—the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel and the answer to the disciples’ request in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus did not give his disciples a series of lectures on prayer. Jesus did not do a thirteen week Bible study on prayer from the Old Testament. Instead, Jesus gave them an example.

This tells me that the very best way to learn how to pray is to begin praying. We don’t learn how to pray by studying prayer. We should not try to discover exactly how prayer works. (Does prayer change God’s mind? Does prayer cause God’s plans for us and the world around us to change? Does God already have the events of the future set?)

It also tells me that Jesus wants us to pray. Jesus demonstrated a life of prayer. His disciples saw him go off to pray alone with God. His disciples heard him pray in public settings. AND, Jesus gave them a simple model for how they (and we) ought to approach God. Prayer is an important part of what it means to be a Christian. Jesus expects his disciples to be men and women of prayer.

I don’t want to pretend that I have all the answers about prayer and the way prayer works. In fact, it is just the opposite. I do not know how prayer works. But, I don’t know how my truck works either. I know that it needs gas to run. I know that I am supposed to get the oil changed. I don’t know how it works…And that does not stop me from driving. I don’t know how medicine works. I have to take allergy medicine every day in order to live comfortably in East Texas. I take the medicine and am thankful that it works, even if I don’t know exactly how or why.

In the Model Prayer, Jesus gives us a demonstration of how to pray and not an explanation of how prayer works.

Jesus teaches us to approach God as our Father. And just as an earthly father wants to give good gifts to his earthly children, so our Heavenly Father wants to bless us with good gifts. If God is our Father, then we don’t have to beg him to do the right thing. We don’t have to plead with him to do what is in our best interest. God, our Father, plans to do the right things and the best things in our lives.

Jesus teaches us to ask for things. Specifically, we are to ask for both the big things and the little things.

For example, our prayers are to be concerned with the big things in life like the coming Kingdom of God. There is nothing bigger and better than the Kingdom of God. This is the rule and reign of God as the King. The world we live in is in constant rebellion against God’s rule. We can’t establish God’s Kingdom for him. All we can do is submit ourselves to God’s rule and pray that the rest of the world will do the same.

In the same way we pray for the big things, we are also supposed to pray for the little things. Even things as small as the daily bread we need to give us life and sustenance. Just as there is nothing too big for God…There is nothing too small for God. God is concerned about every aspect of our lives. We can pray about our jobs, our relationships, the money we make and the food we eat. Again, God is our Heavenly Father who earnestly desires to meet every need for his children.

The Model Prayer demonstrates how we are to approach God in prayer, and it demonstrates what we are to ask of God. We can pray for the really nig things, like the Kingdom of God, and we can pray for the little things, like the food we eat. However, all our requests are to be governed by the will of God. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done (on earth as it is in Heaven).”

III. Jesus as Model.

The Model Prayer is not the only time Jesus demonstrated that our lives and our prayers are to be governed by the will of God.

Jesus modeled this for us when he faced Satanic temptations in the desert. Each of the three temptations Jesus faced presented him with an occasion to substitute his human will for the will of God.

When Satan told Jesus to turn the stones into bread, Jesus was struggling with the human need for food. He had been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and he was hungry. (This is one of the biggest understatements of the entire Bible.) Jesus could use his God-given ability to perform miracles to serve himself… Yet, he resisted. He used his miraculous powers to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to serve other people…rather than himself.

When Satan told Jesus to throw himself off the top of the Temple, he presented Jesus with an opportunity to do something spectacular to catch the attention of all the people at one time. Jesus could have gained a lot of glory for himself by performing such an impressive feat. Yet, this was not God’s plan for Jesus’ life and ministry. The miracles Jesus performed were not attention seeking miracles. They were caring for the least among the people. They were meaningful and spectacular for one person at a time. This is the way God’s Kingdom grows…One person at a time, and not everyone at once.

When Satan told Jesus to bow down and worship Satan in order to receive power and authority over all the nations of the world, he presented Jesus an opportunity to become Lord of the earth without going to the cross. Again, this was not God’s plan. God’s plan involved suffering, crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus could only become Lord over all the earth if he obeyed his Father’s will. He had to go to the cross in order to defeat Satan and to rightfully claim this world as his own.


IV. Why Some Prayers Go Unanswered.

Perhaps this was not the only time Jesus faced such a temptation… Remember the way Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed. He knew he would be convicted of blasphemy. He knew he would be beaten and crucified by the Romans. Yet, on the night before he went to the cross, Jesus prayed in the Garden. He prayed three times. Each prayer began with Jesus’ asking God if there could be any other way. Is there was a way to redeem the world without suffering? Each prayer ended in the same way… Yet, not my will but Thy Will Be Done.

There is an interesting thing about God’s will. We love God’s will. We want to do God’s will. We find joy and fulfillment in God’s will. Yes, we will even fight for God’s will. That is…As long as there is no conflict between God’s will and our will.


James 4: 1 – 3.
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.(NIV)


These are the words of James, the brother of Jesus. They help us to understand why some of our prayers seem to go unanswered. We are praying for “My Will Be Done” instead of “Thy Will Be Done.”

If we believe that Jesus was both fully human AND fully divine, then we must admit that Jesus found himself in conflict with God’s will when he was praying in the Garden. Jesus prayed an honest pray but ultimately submitted himself to God’s will instead of his human desires. Jesus demonstrates how we are to pray and submit to God’s will.

To pray like Jesus prayed… We will tell God exactly what we are feeling and thinking. We will search for every available option. Then, we will give our feeling and thoughts over to God. After all, God knows better than we do and his will is better than ours.

God never promised to bless your plans. Yet, this is what our prayers often sound like. Lord, I need a better job, and I know exactly which job you need to get for me. Lord, I am faced with a decision. I don’t really want to know which choice you think will be better for me, because I already know what I plan to do. All I need you to do is make this work for me. Lord, my pastor needs to make some changes. Help him to see things my way.

This is especially true when we are praying for the future of our church… God knows better than we do about the future of our church and which direction we should go. After all, it is God’s church and not our church.


V. Conclusion.

I made a mistake in my first church and learned a very important lesson. I preached a sermon with one person in mind.

After business meeting one Wednesday night, a woman came to me “hopping mad.” Things had not turned out the way she wanted them to turn out, and she wanted me to know she was mad. She said, “This is my church! I have been in this church my whole life. My parents were in this church their whole lives. This is my church! I am not going to let these newcomers come into MY church and tell me what to do.” (The newcomers she referred to had been members of the church for 21 years.)

I thought about this woman all week long as I selected the Scripture—Matthew 16, where Jesus said, “On this rock I will build MY church.” I thought about this woman while I was writing the sermon—the church belongs to Jesus and not to us. When I preached the sermon on Sunday morning, I looked around the congregation to make sure she was there. Then, I preached to her. I made sure that I wasn’t looking at her too often. I didn’t want to be too obvious.

When the service was over, I went to the back door and waited for her to come by. Sure enough, she waited around at the back of the sanctuary until everyone had left. She was the last one to speak to me. She took me by the hand and said, “That was a really good sermon. You really told THEM.”

With that in mind… I am not preaching to THEM this morning. I am preaching to YOU. Every person in this sanctuary needs to hear this message. Every person in this church needs to pray for our church by praying, “Not my will…Thy Will Be Done.”

Some of us will need to spend time praying about the things we don’t want to change about our church. Perhaps it is the music of the church or the buildings of the church. We need to talk to God about what we feel and what we think. Then, we need to turn it over to God, Thy Will Be Done.

Some of us will need to spend time praying about the things we want to see changed. Perhaps it is the music of the church or the buildings of the church. (It might even be the pastor of the church.) We need to talk to God about what we feel and what we think. We need to tell God how much better the church would be if the leadership would just do things the way we think things ought to be done. Then, we need to turn it over to God, Thy Will Be Done.