May Your Will Be Done

Can you fill in this blank? A picture is worth _a thousand words_. I’m going to show you a series of pictures; I want you to give me one word to describe each:

Happy

Sad

Mad

Pretty easy and pretty obvious, right? There are certain things that don’t take a great detective to figure out.

But can you tell me why the baby is sad? Can you tell whether this man is sincerely angry, or is he just posing for a photo? Can you tell me how happy this woman is, or what she’s happy about? That’s a lot harder, isn’t it?

Some things we can take at face value. Others require explanation, and ideally from the source. The parents of this baby might have a good idea why he’s sad, but this woman is the only one who can tell us why she’s happy or how happy she is.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but even those thousand words aren’t enough to tell the whole story. There’s only one way to know what’s going on in someone’s mind, and that is to ask them. And that’s what makes today’s topic so challenging.

In the Third Petition, we pray to our Father in heaven, “Thy will be done.” We don’t often talk about someone’s “will” unless we’re referring to that legal document that determines what happens to a person’s stuff after they die. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

God’s will is whatever he in his infinite wisdom wants to do. God’s will is his desire. But how can we possibly know what God wants? We can’t look at his facial expressions, but even if we could, we couldn’t read his mind. As great as prayer is; it’s a one-way street. We can speak to God; we are invited to pour out our hearts to him, but he doesn’t respond in the same way. Prayer is not like a conversation we have with a friend over a cup of coffee. Prayer is a one-way street, from us to him.

And yet, God nevertheless does reveal his will to us. He even speaks to us in ways that we can hear with our own two ears. He speaks to us in his Word, and there he reveals his will. He tells us what he wants.

I want to share just two of the explicit examples we read in the Bible of what God wants.

God our Savior wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.[1]

God wants sinners to be saved.

What else does God want?

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.[2]

God wants you to be sanctified, which just means that he wants you to live a good and godly life.

Now, these two passages are not a complete, comprehensive list of all the things that God wants, but they are a representative sample. Of all the things God wants, there are 2 that he wants more than anything else, and they both start with the letter S: _salvation_ and _sanctification_. Generally speaking, that’s what God wants – he wants you to be saved, and he wants you to live like you’re saved. That’s what God’s will is.

How does God’s will get done? That’s what we pray for in the Third Petition: Thy will be done. I want to share three examples with you this morning of three different men in the Bible all of whose names start with the letter J, and who all tell us something about how God’s will is done. I’ll tell you about them one word at a time. You chime in when you think know who it is:

Nineveh. Storm. Whale.

It’s Jonah.

Jonah had a problem with the will of God. Unlike the way he deals with us, God spoke directly with Jonah and told him exactly what his will was for Jonah’s life. God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and to warn the people there of the coming judgment for their sin, with the hope that they would repent and be saved (after all, that’s one of the things we know God wants – salvation).

But Jonah didn’t want what God wanted. The Ninevites were Jonah’s political enemies. They were threatening to attack the Jewish people. Jonah didn’t want to warn them about God’s anger. Jonah wanted God to be mad at them so that they would be destroyed and so that the Jews would be delivered.

So Jonah ran away. He chartered the first boat headed the opposite direction. Tarshish was as far away from Nineveh in the known world as Jonah could have possibly gone.

Jonah defied God’s will, and yet by the end of the story, Jonah still did God’s will. Do you remember how God got Jonah from a boat headed east to Nineveh in the west? He sent a great storm and had Jonah get cast into the sea to be swallowed by a great fish, to be swum back to the shores of Israel and vomited on dry land with the strict command of God:

“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”[3]

This time, Jonah obeyed and did God’s will.

What do we learn about God’s will from Jonah? God’s will is done whether we want to do it or not. The only difference is what our attitude toward God’s will is.

I think we can all be like Jonah. Jonah didn’t want what God wanted. Jonah tried to resist the will of God. We do the same thing. Can you think of some examples?

It could be as simple as daring to ask God, “Why?” I don’t want to go too deeply into specific examples today, but there’s a danger to asking God the question, “Why?” Sometimes we are truly nothing more than curious, e.g. “I wonder why God made the platypus?” Most of the time, though, I think that the question, “Why?” comes from a place of pride, more like, “What were you thinking God? How could you let this happen?”

Really, in the back of our minds, what we’re thinking is, “I had a better plan, God! Why couldn’t you just do what I wanted?” And it doesn’t really matter what the circumstance is. It could be a death or a tragedy, a loss or pain. There are times when, like Jonah, we don’t want what God wants. We are constantly faced with the temptation to think like Jonah did – that my will, i.e. what I want, is better than God’s will, i.e. what he wants.

Sometimes, in sin, we dare to ask God, “Why?” Sometimes, in sin, we dare to ask ourselves, “Why not?” Why shouldn’t I be happy? Why shouldn’t I enjoy the things God forbids – the substances, the secrets, the shameful things I do when no one’s watching, the things that are no one else’s business? “Why not?”

But that’s the sin of Jonah all over again – thinking that what I want is better than what God wants. I don’t care about God wants; I only care about what I want. Or, if it’s a little less callous than that: I don’t know what God wants; I do know what I want, so I’m not going to bother trying to learn what God wants. I’m just going to make sure my will gets done.

Jonah teaches us two things: God’s will always gets done, and any opposition that I raise to it, is sin. Time for another J:

Dreams. Coat. Egypt. Slave. Prisoner. Famine.

This one is Joseph. Joseph didn’t defy the clear will of God, the way that Jonah did. With Joseph it was more that the will of God was unclear and sometimes in question.  

Joseph was given a dream at a young age – his siblings and even his parents would bow down to him. His brothers thought he was gloating and they hated him for him. They thought about killing him, but elected for the less violent route by merely selling him into slavery. From there he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Joseph had gone from being the favourite son of his father to a forgotten prisoner mouldering away in a dungeon somewhere far from home.

Joseph must have been so confused. What about that dream God had given him? Wasn’t it God’s will that Joseph rise to such a power that even his family would bow down to him? It didn’t look like that was going to happen from where Joseph was sitting.

But then God used a series of unlikely events to put Joseph into a position to help the Pharaoh of Egypt out of a jam, and in thankfulness Pharaoh plucked Joseph out of prison and made him second in command over the greatest superpower of the day.

God’s will was clear. Joseph would rise to power. But the path from A to B wasn’t a straight line. So, what can we learn about God’s will this time from Joseph? God’s will doesn’t always match our expectation. Or, to put it the way that Isaiah does:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”[4]

I’m sure that, given the choice, Joseph wouldn’t have opted for slavery or prison, but God still used those truly challenging moments in Joseph’s life to put him in a position to save thousands. As the second in command in all of Egypt, Joseph ensured that not only Egypt but all of its neighbours would survive a 7 year famine. I’m sure it’s not what Joseph had in mind, or how he thought he’d get from A to B, but it was God’s will, and God’s will got done.  

And finally, our last J. I’m willing to bet that I don’t have to say a single word for you to guess who this J is. It’s Jesus!

Just like with Joseph, God’s will in Jesus’ life was often paradoxical and unexpected. The Son of God from all eternity was born of a woman in antiquity. The almighty, all-powerful, omnipotent God was at the mercy of earthly rulers. The sinless Son of God was convicted of crimes he did not commit and sentenced to die a criminal’s death. The eternal, immortal, ever-living God was killed to give you eternal, unending life in his name.

That doesn’t make sense to us. You hear statements like that and you ask the questions: How is that possible? Why would God do that?

The snarky answer is, because he wanted to – because that was his will. The better answer is because he loves you, and because you know the two areas of God’s will that are crystal clear in Scripture: _salvation_ and _sanctification_. God wanted you to be saved. That’s why he sent his sinless Son to die on a cross – for your salvation.

Unlike Jonah, Jesus didn’t begrudge his mission. He willingly and wholeheartedly accepted the will of his Father and he humbled himself – not only by becoming a man, and living as the poor son of a carpenter and later on a vagabond preacher. He humbled himself being obedient even to the point of death on a cross, even when he would have loved for there to be a different way to save you.

And this is one of the most amazing stories in the entire Bible. On the night before Jesus died, literally minutes before he was arrested by the Jews, Jesus prayed this:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”[5]

In those last moments before his death, Jesus prayed for there to be another way to save humanity. He didn’t look forward to what was about to happen to him, and he asked his Father in heaven for a different option.

But how did Jesus end this prayer? “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus was willing to accept his Father’s will, even when it wasn’t his own, even when it would mean great pain and ultimately an excruciating death, because at the end of the day even if Jesus didn’t know anything else about his Father’s will, he knew the same two things that you and I do. God desires our _salvation_ and _sanctification_. And Jesus did too. Jesus was willing to give up his will out of love for you. Jesus was willing to be condemned, so that you could be forgiven. Jesus was willing to die so that you could live.  

There could be no better comfort than Jesus when we’re confronted with our own Jonah-like opposition to God’s will. Even for our rejection of and rebellion against God’s will in our lives, we have forgiveness in Jesus who kept his Father’s will perfectly.

There could be no better comfort than Jesus. There could be no better example than Jesus. When we pray to our Father in heaven, especially about his will being done, how can we be like Jesus?

We can be humble like him. Submit our will to his. Trust that even when we can’t see how God could get us from A to B, his will will always be done, one way or another.  It may not take the path we think it might or should. It might not be what we wanted, but if it’s God’s will, it is always best. If it is God’s will, it will never jeopardize our salvation or compromise our sanctification.

God wants you to know that you are saved. That’s why he sent and sacrificed his Son. That was his will. Now he wants you live like you’re saved. So, pray like Jesus, “Thy will be done.” Amen.

[1] 1 Timothy 2:3,4

[2] 1 Thessalonians 4:3

[3] Jonah 3:2

[4] Luke 22:42

[5] Luke 22:42

St. Pete's on Repeat RSS

Help Us Honor God's Name as Holy

Help Us Honor God’s Name as Holy

Quick survey: by show of hands, how many of you know what it means to “hallow” something? Or maybe, better yet, by show of hands, how many of you have used the word “hallow” outside of the Lord’s Prayer?

If you have never used that word and don’t know how to define it, don’t feel bad. That’s literally why we’re here today. More than that, you’re not alone. Smarter people than you have screwed up their faces at the use of the word “hallow” in this prayer for centuries. Consider this quote from Martin Luther about this petition almost exactly 500 years ago:

These words are somewhat obscure and not really according to common usage.[1]

This terminology was antiquated 500 years ago! And yet we still use it, in part, because it is that engrained in Christian tradition, but mostly because there doesn’t exist another word in the English language that quite captures the meaning of “hallow.” To spare any more confusion and to square this away once and for all, here is the definition for hallow:

to regard as holy; to treat as supremely special.

That’s what God wants us to do with his name – he wants us to regard it as holy and to treat it as supremely special. In fact, this is so important to God that he made it the first petition – the first request – we are to include in our daily prayers. Now, it’s going to take a little bit for us to understand why this is so important to God (and therefore also why it should be important for us), so let’s take it one step at a time.

Maybe this is an obvious question, but it’s a good place to start: What is God’s name?

Moses actually had the same question. When God sent him to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery, Moses had his doubts and fears. He asked God:

“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”[2]

This is one of the clearest answers God ever gives to our first major question today: What is God’s name? It’s I am, or I am who I am. That’s a strange name, isn’t it? You don’t hear that called out on the playground at school very often, do you? It may be strange, but it can actually tell us quite a bit about God.

Why do you suppose God calls himself I am, and not I was or I will be? We can actually see a bit of God’s eternal nature in his name. No matter when you talk to or about God he always is. He is in the constant, eternal state of being in the present. Now, that may make your brain hurt a little just thinking about it, but here’s a helpful way I’ve found to think about it: God is not a “has been” and God is not a “not yet.” He is, and he always is.

What difference does that make to you – to know that God is not a has been or a not yet – especially as you think about praying to him? There is never a time when you have gotten to God too early or too late. It is not as if his power or influence has dried up over the centuries. It is not as if he is not ready yet to help you, as if he has to get his ducks in a row before he can be of any use to you. He is – and always is – ready, willing, able to hear and help you.

There’s a whole lot more that I could say about this name for God, but there are so many other names that also tell us so much about God. Allow me just one more. This one also comes from the book of Exodus as God is encouraging Moses, this time a bit later in life. God came down to Moses in a cloud and proclaimed his name:

The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.[3]

You could say that this whole paragraph is God’s name. What do we learn about God from this name?

In the first half he just piles on expressions of love and patience and kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, grace, mercy. In the first half, we see a picture of a God who can endure and withstand all the many ways that we abuse and misuse him. We see a God of unlimited love.

But in case all those good and lovely expressions of patience and forgiveness were to leave you with the impression that God is a sap or a pushover, he adds the second sentence about punishing the guilty. In his grace, God can withstand and endure all kinds of sin, but he still has a very strong sense of justice – not leaving the guilty unpunished.

God warns us in the Second Commandment not to misuse his name. In fact, he forbids it:

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.[4]

Really, it’s the same thing that we pray for in the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: hallowed be thy name. It’s just that one is stated positively and the other is stated negatively. What does it tell you that the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer and Second Commandment are both focused on the proper use of the name of God? It means that God’s name is very important to him, and he wants it to be very important to you too.

You have a special connection with God’s name. Did you know that? We heard this last week:

When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[5]

God adopted you into his family. You are his dear child and he is your Father in heaven. What often happens to a child’s name when they’re adopted into their forever family? Their name changes. They take on the name of their adoptive family. That’s what happened to you when you became a Christian, when you were baptized. That’s what Jesus commands his followers to do:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.[6]

You were baptized into the name of God and now, as a Christian, you carry that name with you wherever you go. So, when God makes these commands and instructs you to pray a certain way about his name, it doesn’t just affect him; it applies to you and everything you say and do.

It kind of reminds me of my first day of high school. Mrs. Burgess was calling roll in English class. “Amber Margraff?” “Here!” “Elizabeth Metcalf?” “Here!” Then she came to my name, paused, and practically growled, “Metzger…” So, I sheepishly raised my hand and said, “Here?”

This was the first time in my life that I had ever met this woman, and before she sees me do anything, hears me say anything, before she knows anything about me as my own individual human being, you could hear in her voice that she already disliked me. She had had my two older brothers in class before me, and let’s just say that they didn’t leave the best impression with her. So the instant she saw the name “Metzger,” her mood turned sour, and she considered me guilty by association.

That is the awesome privilege but also terrifying responsibility that you have as a Christian, as a person who carries God’s name with you wherever you go. God does not walk the streets of St. Albert, but you do. God does not have a social media profile or a Twitter handle, but you do. And here’s the kicker, for many people, more and more, the first impression they have of God is you, a Christian, who carries his name with you wherever you go.

What do you suppose people think about God when they look at what you, a Christian, post or share on social media? What impression does this world have of God when they overhear the conversation of one of his followers in the mall or at a softball game or in a bar?

Sadly, it’s all too easy not to hallow God’s name. We don’t always regard it as something that is holy or treat it as something supremely special. We use it to punctuate text messages or to accentuate the punchline of a joke. We forget that the world is watching and that people are drawing conclusions about God based on what we say and do all the time, not just on Sunday mornings or when we’re at our best, but also on Friday nights and when we’re at our worst.

I think that Jesus teaches us to pray this petition first, because it’s one of the first things we fail and forget to do, but also because it is that important. God is not just worried about you dragging his name through the mud because he has a vain attachment to his reputation. He cares about it, because eternal salvation depends on it.

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.[7]

If the world around you recognizes you as a Christian and they don’t like what they see, then they may walk away from the only name under heaven given to mankind by which they can possibly be saved, not because God is unappealing but because you are. We have a responsibility to represent our God to this world. Do you embody what God tells us about himself in his name?

The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.[8]

Of course not. None of us do. But there is one who did. And I think you know his name.

Jesus was compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. You can see those qualities clearly throughout Jesus’ life, but maybe most poignantly in his last 24 hours. He was wrongfully accused, brutally abused, falsely convicted of crimes he did not commit and sentenced to death on a cross. And yet he did not utter a word of protest or lift a finger to fight back. He did not cuss out his murderers or curse the followers who abandoned him to suffer his fate alone. He prayed for them and died for them, because he had compassion on them and was faithful to them.

Jesus maintained love to thousands of sinners who sinned against him and he forgave wickedness, rebellion and sin at great cost to himself. He was able to withstand and put up with a mountain of disrespect and disobedience, and still manage not to be a sap or a pushover. He preserved justice, not by ignoring our sin, but by taking our punishment on himself, so that we could be forgiven. He lived up to his name.

Do you know what Jesus’ name means? “He saves.” That’s exactly what he did for you. He was punished, so that you could be set free from all your guilt and shame. He was crucified, so that you could live in his forgiveness and love forever. He even gave you his name – both to call on and to be called by.

We have this promise through the prophet Joel (which was later repeated by both Peter[9] and Paul[10]):  

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.[11]

That’s true for you. Even when your words and actions have made it clear that you don’t always regard God’s name as holy or treat as something special, even when the world looks at you and doesn’t see a perfect reflection of your Father in heaven, there’s forgiveness for you in his Son Jesus, whose name literally means your salvation. You can call on the name of your Lord in prayer and be assured of your salvation.

But that’s also true for everyone else too, especially for those who are blessed to learn about their God through you. I called it a terrifying responsibility earlier, i.e. to carry the name of Christ with us wherever we go, but it’s also an awesome privilege – to be the way in which God makes his name known for the salvation of the world around us. That’s why the first thing Jesus teaches us to pray is: hallowed be thy name.

The only question that remains is, how do we do that? How do we ensure that we treat God’s name as something supremely special? Consider a pair of passages:

Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.[12]

If sincerely feel like God’s name is something supremely special, what are we going to do with it? We’re going to use it! We’re going to tell other people about him. We’re going to shout from the rooftops the good news of forgiveness and eternal life through his Son Jesus, our Saviour.

Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.[13]

What do you think Jesus means when he says, “Let your light shine”? He’s talking about the way you live your life. He’s encouraging you to behave in a such a way that people can’t help but see even just a glimmer of the goodness and grace of God. Maybe that means being polite and helpful – holding the door open for someone or helping them bring their groceries in. Maybe that means being kind and compassionate – going out of your way to find people who need help and making a donation or offering to volunteer.

But this is the important question: Why? Not so that your reputation can be improved. So that you can give glory to God in everything you say and do. So that through you, others may be drawn to him. So that through you and what you do, they may believe in him and receive salvation by calling on his name.

“Hallow.” It may be “somewhat obscure and not really according to common usage,” but it’s supremely special and worthy of our first petition. Hallowed be his name. Amen.

[1] Luther’s Large Catechism, p.84

[2] Exodus 3:13,14

[3] Exodus 34:6,7

[4] Exodus 20:7

[5] Galatians 4:4,5

[6] Matthew 28:19

[7] Acts 4:12

[8] Exodus 34:6,7

[9] Acts 2:21

[10] Romans 10:13

[11] Joel 2:32

[12] 1 Chronicles 16:8

[13] Matthew 5:16

St. Pete's on Repeat RSS