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Prayer 101 – Lesson 3
His Will
Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
I want to take up where we left of a few weeks ago on the series that I started back in Nov on The Lord’s Prayer.
I felt pressed to start this series with you for several reasons:
- So we would know how to pray and communicate with God.
- Because here we have Jesus who is God manifest in the flesh actually teaching us how to pray.
- It is through prayer that we can communicate our needs and the needs of others to God.
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss,
There have been many classes taught on the subject of prayer.
- There have been seminars on Prayer
- There have been countless sermons on prayer.
- There have been numerous books written about prayer.
But here in Matthew 6 we have the Lord Himself telling us not only how to pray, but why to pray and more importantly, with what attitude to pray.
- So we are working our way through His teaching on prayer, but you have to understand, there is a lot of meat here. I’m taking this slow for a reason. We have to get this!
- A quick reading of it does not completely comprehend all that it is saying.
- This is powerful when you understand it.
- It will change your life when you understand it.
I want to focus today on vs 10.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
There is a key word in this verse that is a key to unlocking the miraculous in our lives and releasing the Kingdom of God into this world.
Does anybody know what that word is?
Will
Will is something that we see in a small infant very soon after they are born.
That baby is not concerned that you want or need to sleep, they want something to eat. Or they want their diaper changed.
Later on we see that same child fighting with their siblings or other children because they want a particular toy.
As life goes on, that same child may stand up to you and look you in the eye and say, I’m going to do what I want to do!
- I’m going to dress the way I want to dress
- I’m going to be friends with people I want to be friends with
- I’m going to work where I want to work
- It’s my life and I’ll do what I want.
Will
- We all have one.
- It’s what causes jealously
- It’s what causes arguments and fights
- It’s the thing that gives us the drive we need to rise above our circumstances and overcome the obstacles in our lives.
- Your will may help you to become successful to some degree in this world.
- Your will may also cause you a lot of disappointments.
“My life just isn’t going the way I want it to.”
- Will is attached to want.
- What we want is what we will.
Isn’t it strange that God would tell us to pay attention to what we want or what we will when we pray?
- What should my will or what I want have to do with what God is doing in this world or whether or not he is going to answer my prayers.
For the most part, that’s how many of us start our prayers…
- “God, I Want A New Car!”
- “God, I want A New House!”
- “God, Are You Listening? I Want You To Fix Everything That I Have Messed Up”!
My will shows up in my prayers way too often!
- My will is where I live so doesn’t it make sense that My Will would show up in My Prayers?!
- I want
- I Need
- Me
- My
- Mine
But Jesus is telling us here to leave Our Will out of Our Prayers.
He said, “Pray this way… Not my will God, But Yours be done.”
- Wow, that’s tough to do.
- You mean I have to yield my will to God?
- I have to say, “Hey God, you know better than me anyway so go ahead and handle this situation however You want.”
- You know what You are doing.
- You’re God!
- You’re the creator of it all anyway; you go ahead and do it Your way!
Not My Will – But Thine Be Done!
- Did you know that God has a will too?
Sure He does, Just like you have a will that wants and needs and expects things to happen a certain way, So Does He!
What is His will?
- Vs 6 pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Look at that word REWARD.
- God’s will is not to see you struggle.
- God’s will is not to see you suffer.
His will is to reward you openly for your faithfulness to Him.
- A reward is a gift
- It means compensation or payment.
The yielding of your will to the one who knows what you have need of before you even ask – requires faith.
Your having and displaying faith is rewarded by your Heavenly Father answering your prayer.
The problem that many of us have is not that we do not pray. The problem that we struggle with is that we do not yield our will to allow His will to take place.
- We want it NOW!
- We want it the way we want it.
- We want it with no cost
- We don’t want the blessing that teaches us to trust Him
- We want the blessing that comes free of charge and with no strings attached.
But His will is to teach us to trust Him
His will is to have us unconditionally trust Him.
His will is for us to Yield ourselves to His perfect will in our lives.
- We want to live the way we want to live.
- We want to do what we want to do.
- We want to go where we want to go.
- We want to act the way we want to act.
- We want to sin whenever we want to sin.
- We want to say what we want to say.
- We want to hurt who we want to hurt.
Then we want to turn to God and say “Bless Me!”
- “Heal Me!”
- “Encourage Me!”
- “Help Me!”
But I hear Jesus teaching us to say, “Not My Will But Thine Be Done”.
Other words, I’m going to live the way He wants me to live.
- I’m going to do what He wants me to do.
- I’m going to go where He wants me to go and not go where he would not want me to go.
- I’m going to stop acting the way I want to act and start acting the way He wants me to act.
Are you getting the point?
We can’t just live and behave any old way we want to and expect Him to bless us any old time we ask him to.
He’s not a door mat.
At some point we are going to have to yield our lives and our will to Him if we are going to expect the miraculous to begin to happen in our lives.
“In Earth as it is in Heaven”
Wouldn’t it be an amazing thing if the Will of God could be accomplished in this world as it is in Heaven?
- Heaven yields to His will.
- Heaven adores His will.
- Heaven yearns to know His will.
- Heaven declares His will
- Heaven waits on His will
- Heaven desires to accomplish His will.
If we could somehow have the same attitude about His Will as Heaven does, our prayers could have a much different effect than they do quite often.
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
Thy Kingdom come
68 Times – The Kingdom of God is mentioned in the New Testament.
- Jesus focused much of His teaching on The Kingdom of God.
- And we find it here too in His teaching about prayer.
Over and over again, He used parables and illustrations to help people understand what the Kingdome of God.
For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
- It’s not the party.
- It’s not the feastings.
- It’s not celebrations, as the world would celebrate.
Paul gave the best description of the Kingdome of God I can find.
- Living right.
- Peace
- Joy in the Holy Ghost
Having a life that is blessed by the Holy Spirit of God
Can I say, being full of the Holy Spirit.
