Whose Will?

Matthew 6:9-13

 May 14, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Two politicians, both of whom were trying to position themselves as the faith and values candidate, squared off in a debate. In the course of the discussion, one of the candidates said to the other, “I’ll bet you $20 you don’t even know the words to the Lord’s Prayer.” The other candidate puffed himself up and said, “I’ll take your bet. I do know the words to the Lord’s Prayer.” “Great,” the first one said, “Let’s hear it.” To which the second candidate looked right out at the audience and proudly said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” The first candidate was shocked, then he reached into his wallet and took out $20, saying, “I really didn’t think you would know it!” (Hamilton, The Lord’s Prayer, pgs. 27-28).

Now, what I’m hoping right now is that you get the joke and aren’t like the candidates who think that simple bedtime prayer really is the Lord’s Prayer! But whether you are brand new to this prayer or you really do know it by heart and have repeated it in worship for many years, there is always room for growth in our prayer life; we can always have a better connection with God through prayer. So this morning we’re continuing our series on the Lord’s Prayer, which we’re calling “Kingdom Come,” because that part of the prayer is at the heart of what Jesus taught. As I hope you remember, the disciples saw something in Jesus’ prayer life that they wanted in theirs. It wasn’t that they had never prayed; their traditions and their faith was rooted in regular, routine prayer. But there was some connection with the heavenly Father that Jesus seemed to have that they wanted. Beyond just private instruction with his twelve disciples, though, Jesus had first taught this prayer in the midst of his Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6, he is contrasting the way that pagans pray (which he describes as “babbling” [6:7]) with the way his followers are to pray. And this portion of the prayer we come to this morning is critical to understanding the difference. Pagans pray always asking for what they want. Jesus followers pray always focused on what God wants.

Last week we began by focusing our prayers on who it is we pray to: “Our Father in haven, hallowed be your name…” (6:9). And we talked about how the very first request in the prayer is that God’s name would be honored by the way we live our lives. From there, Jesus’ teaching moves on to remind us that prayer is not really about getting what I want. The focus of this next section of the prayer is not “me” or “mine.” Listen: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10). This is so counter-intuitive, because one of the first words we learn as a toddler is, “Mine!” And though we may do a better job of masking it as we grow older, in many ways we remain focused on “mine” all of our lives. 

Dr. Ben Witherington says, “This is not a prayer for narcissists who think God exists to fulfill their wildest dreams” (Witherington, OneBook: The Gospel of Matthew, pg. 25). One time I read about a person who “suggested that the difference between prayer and magic is determined by knowing whose will is being done. In prayer, [which is] true conversation and communion with God, we are interested in seeing the Father’s will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9–13). In magic, which prayer can easily and subtly turn into, we use our will and prayer to [try to] get God to do our will.” “My will be done” sometimes looks like “a chain letter full of ‘just pass this on to seven people and your prayer will be granted,’” or it might look like using lots and lots of words, almost like we’re trying to wear God down to get what we want (which Jesus warned us against, Matthew 6:7). Those things are more “spiritual badgering” than trust and obedience, and at that point we’re treating prayer as magic and God as a cosmic dispenser of things (cf. Wilt, Jesus In the Wild, pg. 117). It becomes about my will, not his will, and that’s not the model Jesus gives us. Unless there is something—or someone—who breaks in and changes our focus, we remain stuck in selfishness. That’s what this section of the prayer is doing. We remember who we are praying to and then we orient ourselves toward him. Not my kingdom, but yours. Not my will, but yours. It’s not something that comes naturally to us, which I believe is why Jesus included it early in this model prayer.

So let’s spend a few moments thinking about those two words Jesus used to describe what should be God’s and not ours. The first of those words is most often translated as “kingdom.” We have only a passing understanding of what that word means today, especially in this country. Some of you may have gotten up early to watch the coronation of King Charles III a little over a week ago, or maybe you saw clips on YouTube or on the news, and what people seem to most appreciate about the whole thing these days is the pomp and circumstance, the pageantry. There aren’t many places where you still see traditions that go back hundreds of years being carried out. It has a real sense of history, of an institution with deep roots. But we also know as we watch that the king of the United Kingdom really has very little power. In many ways, the monarchy today in Britain and other places is only a symbolic position of leadership. That’s why there are so many discussions happening across the pond about the cost and usefulness of the monarchy. But in Biblical times, kings and kingdoms were where the real power was. However, when we think of “kingdom” we usually picture a physical location, and that’s not what this word really means.

When you see “kingdom of God” in your English Bibles, you should substitute the word “kingship” or “reign” in your head. It’s never about a specific piece of property, or a geographical location, as if the “kingdom of God” could be limited to a place on earth. This word is really about God’s reign over creation. It’s really about the places where God is allowed to be king. When we are invited to pray, “Your kingdom come,” we’re praying that God would be welcomed into every life and every place and every situation, to be king over those people, places and things. This is what Jesus announced. His very first sermon, recorded in Mark 1, was this: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). For centuries, millennia even, people had been anticipating the arrival of God’s kingdom. Now, Jesus says, it has arrived. But what did it mean for God to be king? And what does it mean for us to pray for his kingdom to come? What will change if—when—that happens?

The answer to that question is found in the next phrase: “Your will be done” (6:10). When someone is king, their will is the one that matters all throughout the places where their reign is acknowledged. And their will is the only one that matters. If your will conflicts with the will of the king, guess who is going to win that one? However, the kingdom or reign of God works differently from earthly kingdoms because of this little thing God has given us called free will. From the very beginning, human beings were created with the ability to choose. God did not want robots, automatically doing whatever he said. And so he gave our first parents a choice in the garden. You can obey and do what your creator knows is best for you, or you can go your own way. The sad tale is told in Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve choose to do the one thing God told them they should not do. They rebelled against the king, and the history of the human race is really the story of one rebellion after another. All too often we pray, “Your will be done,” and then go ahead and do our own thing anyway. And then we wonder why the world is in the state it’s in. As author Becky Pippert put it many years ago, “The problem with the world is me” (Hope Has Its Reasons, pg. 1).

Here’s a radical claim for some people, maybe some of you: not everything that happens in the world is the will of God. It’s just not, and to say so does not take anything away from God’s sovereignty and power. In fact, I believe it takes more strength on God’s part to not interfere, to not zap us every time we mess things up. Talk about strength and restraint! “Everything happens for a reason” is not in the Bible and it’s not Biblical. “The very reason we must pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,’ is because God’s will is often not done on earth as it is in heaven” (Hamilton 40). You don’t ask God for things you already have, so if Jesus told us to pray for God’s will to be done, that means it isn’t yet being done here (cf. Witherington 25). Think about the ministry of Jesus. When he encountered sick people, did he say, “I’m sorry, I’d like to heal you, but I can’t because you being sick is in the will of God”? No, of course not. In fact, he knows sickness, pain, and suffering are not God’s will and he goes about healing many. It’s not God’s will that millions have died in war, or from malnutrition, or from cancer, or from a drunk driver. It’s not God’s will that we hurt each other, or that people become addicted to harmful substances, or that one group commits genocide on another. Many years ago, the man who was my youth leader died after a surgery that didn’t go according to plan. When I went to his funeral, the pastor who officiated tried desperately to explain why God’s will was that Dave die. I wanted to stand up and interrupt—I didn’t but I wanted to—and say that Dave died not because of God’s will but because of a mistake in surgery. And so until the day comes when God’s will is done completely on earth, we pray, “Your will be done.”

Part of why we pray this, too, is as a reminder to ourselves that we are called to submit our will to God’s will. We’re called to give up what we want in favor of what the king wants. Why? Because we’re not the king. The Biblical vision is that we are stewards who carry out the king’s will. This works on many levels, the first and most important of which is giving our lives over to Jesus. In fact, we can’t do any of the rest of this if we aren’t continually trying to follow him with everything we are every day. I remember the singer Rich Mullins saying how he often would frustrate people who wanted to interview him and they would ask him when he gave his life to Jesus because his usual response was, “Which time?” I resonate with that. Some of us might be able to name a time and day when we first trusted Jesus; I still remember the church basement where I was when I did that. But, friends, I have to pretty much do it again each morning when I get up. “Jesus, I give you my life this day. I can’t do it without you. Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Our foundational prayer is to ask Jesus to be our king.

And when we do that, we become citizens of two kingdoms (cf. Hamilton 35). We become citizens of the kingdom of heaven, of which Jesus is the king, and we are citizens of the earthly kingdom. The challenge—maybe I should say the struggle—is to determine which of those kingdoms will take priority in our lives. Now, I know that’s hard because God’s kingdom is invisible and the world’s kingdom is oh so present, pulling at us, enticing us, wanting us to embrace its values and submit to its will. The kingdom of God is quieter, inviting rather than insisting. That’s why Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas write that at this point, “Unexpectedly, quite surprisingly, politics has crept into our Christian praying” (qtd. in Hamilton 43). Because when we pray “your will be done,” that’s really a call for us to allow God’s values, God’s priorities to influence and impact everything we do, from parenting to voting, from our finances to our activities, from what we watch on TV and surf to on the internet to how we interact with the people at the store. It all matters, and it’s all impacted by this prayer, especially the final phrase we want to look at today: “on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10).

It’s no secret that things on earth are nothing like what they should be. Sin has touched and corrupted everything and nothing is as God designed it to be. God’s will is not done, people rebel, and nature itself is often in crisis. I think that’s at least part of what Paul was getting at when he wrote to the Romans that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22). But in that same section of the Romans letter, Paul also says, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (8:18). There is something better coming. There is a day coming when things will be “on earth as it is in heaven,” when all will be the way it should be, when God’s will is done fully and completely. That’s why this is not just a personal prayer. “Every time we pray this prayer, we ask God for our planet to become what God intended for it to be…This is a vision for the world” (Hamilton 44).

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, centuries even before Jesus, had a vision of what such a world might look like. Here’s how he described it: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them…They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6, 9). It’s a magnificent picture of harmony, of the earth as God intended, of a peaceable kingdom. Many of you know my cocker spaniel, Barnabas. When he’s in the house with us, he’s as gentle as they come, but when we let him out in the back yard, he is a mighty warrior. No birds or cats or squirrels will ever attack our house; I feel very safe and secure when Barney is on patrol. The other day there was a cat probably halfway across our neighbor’s yard, and he was whining at the back door. As soon as I let him out, he tore across the yard until the fence stopped him. And I had to laugh because he doesn't know that cat. He just knows that all cats are his mortal enemy. But when things are on earth as they are in heaven, dogs and cats will get along. That’s what Isaiah says. The wolf will live with the lamb. Creation will be the way it was always intended to be because God’s kingdom will have come and God’s will will be done.

So the question we are asked by this part of the prayer is this: do we approach everything with a desire to see it align with God’s will? Let me try some meddling again. This year is a municipal election, but we know that pretty soon, if not already, the rhetoric is going to start for next year’s presidential and national elections. And undoubtedly, there will be a lot of rhetoric, a lot of mudslinging and a lot of accusations. It will probably be ugly. And a lot of people will claim that God is on their side. Several years ago, I preached a sermon here called, “Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?” and someone on the way out told me they thought I was going to tell them who to vote for. Spoiler alert: I won’t ever do that. What I want and what I believe this prayer is calling for is for us to approach everything, including politics, through the lens of our faith, not the other way around, with the desire that God’s will would be done above all else. In fact, with anyone running for office, I don’t care what you think your opponent is doing wrong. I’m more interested in knowing what your vision is for a better world (cf. Hamilton 44). We’d all be far better off to turn off the news commentaries and spend more time in prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10).

When all is said and done, this is not a prayer for those who want to rule. This is a prayer, instead, for those of us who are willing to be ruled by a king who is greater than we are and whose will is the best and only hope for this world. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. Even this vision that we are pursuing is not about us. It’s all about God. It’s his will we are pursuing, it’s his vision we are following. Love God, love people, love life. The psalmist had it right: “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.” (Psalm 115:1).

Abraham Kuyper was what we might call a “renaissance man.” In his 83 years, he did a little bit of everything. He was a pastor, a theologian and helped found the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, a denomination that became the second largest in the country. He also started a political party, a university and a newspaper. When he entered politics, he gave up his pastoral ministry to serve in Parliament, eventually becoming prime minister of the Netherlands. I tell you all that because one of the foundations of his theology was that Jesus truly is king over all, and Kuyper didn’t just think that, he lived it out. Everything he did was under the rule of Jesus, and he summed up his thought this way: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May it be so. Amen.

As we go to prayer this morning, I invite you to join me first in praying the Lord’s Prayer together…