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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As you may know, on Danville Road, between Danville Drive and the 259 bypass loop, there are two good‑sized hills. One of the routes I sometimes run has me go down and up those hills twice, once within the first mile on the way out and once within the last mile on the way back, after however many other miles intervened. The return hill down from the loop is always a welcome relief, but the return hill up towards the water tower is often a dreaded obstacle. Running that stretch of the route, I regularly reflect on Jesus’s statement that all things are possible with God for one who believes (Matthew 19:26; Mark 9:23; 10:27; 14:36). And, as I sometimes have to resort to walking up the hill, I turn to reflecting on Jesus’s statement to Simon Peter, after Jesus found him and James and John sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night on which Jesus was betrayed, when Jesus said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41; Mark 14:38). God certainly could enable me to run back up that hill, no matter how far I have run in the meantime, but whether or not He wills to do so is another matter.
As we continue our special‑services sermon‑series focusing on the Lord’s Prayer, in light of the words and deeds of our Lord’s Passion: tonight we consider the Fourth Petition, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This particular Petition is found only in St. Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer; perhaps when our Lord gave the Prayer as recorded by St. Luke, the first two petitions—for the hallowing of God’s Name and for the coming of His Kingdom—included the third St. Matthew records—for the doing of His will.
As with those first two Petitions, when we pray the Third, for God’s will to be done, we are praying for God’s interests but in our own behalf. That is, we are praying “that what must be done without us”—and is done even without our prayer—“may also be done in us” (Large Catechism, III:68). In this case, as Our Father’s will is done in heaven, so we pray that it may also be done on earth, especially among us. To be sure, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature do not want us to do the will of God, as they do not want us to hallow His Name and let His kingdom come among us (Small Catechism, III:11). As a result of our fallen human nature, we complain about what God’s will permits us to face. We hardly submit to God’s will, much less consent to it. In fact, too often we flat out oppose God’s will and do quite the opposite. By nature, our flesh is weak, not necessarily in its ability to run up a hill but religiously and morally (Romans 6:19)! Our Lord Jesus taught in a parable that servants who knew their Master’s will but did not act accordingly will consequently receive a severe beating (Luke 12:47). On another occasion Jesus said plainly, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). What does that statement of our Lord’s mean is in store for us who do not do the will of our Father who is in heaven?
When Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem just days before His Passion, He told a parable about a man who told his two sons to go and work in his vineyard. One son said that he would but did not, while the other son said that he would not but then repented and did. The chief priests and elders of the Jewish people knew and said that the son who repented did the will of his father, but they nevertheless refused to repent. So, Jesus said that they were not going into the Kingdom of God, while repentant and believing tax collectors and prostitutes were going into the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 21:28-32) Do we likewise repent and believe? Do we turn in sorrow from our complaints about God’s will, our not consenting or submitting to His will, our opposing His will and doing the opposite? Do we trust God to forgive those and all our other sins for Jesus’s sake?
In St. Matthew’s account of the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus says that, just as a man with one hundred sheep would leave 99 to search for one that was lost, so the will of His Father in heaven is that not one person should perish (Matthew 18:10-14). To make such salvation possible, the Second Person of the Triune God took on human flesh in the man Jesus Christ. Jesus came to do the will and finish the work of the One Who sent Him, specifically, to lose nothing of all whom He had given Him but to raise them up at the last day (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38-39). With that goal in mind, Jesus carried out His Father’s will. Yes, Jesus wrestled with His Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane, but He did not complain about it; instead, He submitted and consented to it, and He did it (Matthew 26:39, 42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified on the cross, died and was buried—all for us. And, He also rose again from the dead—that we might have life in Him. With that life, our Father in heaven upholds us with a willing spirit (Psalm 51:12), a willing spirit that recognizes Jesus’s teaching as God’s will (John 7:17). Our Father in heaven enables us to repent and gives us faith in Jesus. When we repent and believe, then our Father in heaven, for Jesus’s sake, forgives our sin, no matter what our sin is. He forgives our sin through His Means of Grace: that is, through His Word and Sacraments.
When Jesus told Peter “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”, He used a Greek adjective that is only used one other time in the whole New Testament. That one time is when St. Paul uses that adjective in writing to the Romans that he is “eager” to preach the Gospel to them in (Romans 1:15). Indeed, preaching the Gospel to the Romans was part of St. Paul’s ministry then, as preaching is a responsibility of the one Office of the Holy ministry today. That same ministry administers the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where children are born—not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man but—of God (John 1:13). That same ministry administers the Sacrament of the Altar, where we eat bread that is Jesus’s body given for us and drink the cup of the New Testament in His blood shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. Truly, Jesus came as the Bread of Life for us to fulfill the will of the Father so that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life and so that the Son should raise us up on the last day (John 6:40). Truly, Jesus drank the cup of the Father’s wrath, as He willed, so that we can drink the cup of salvation (Matthew 26:39, 42; Luke 22:42; Psalm 116:13).
Born as God’s children in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and fed with heavenly food in the Sacrament of the Altar, we do the will of our Father in heaven and so are brothers and sisters with our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35). Of course, the devil and his evil angels inflict misfortune and grief upon us, what is often called the cross of the Christian (Large Catechism, III:65). The world and our own sinful natures that still cling to us also continue to wage war against our doing the will of our Father in heaven; St. Paul wrote of experiencing the same battle inside of himself (Romans 7:21-23). “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As St. Paul continued to sin and relied on the Lord Jesus for deliverance (Romans 7:24-25), so we will continue to sin but rely on the Lord Jesus for deliverance. And, God hears our prayers for deliverance!As even the man born blind to whom Jesus gave sight told the Pharisees: “If anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, God listens to him” (John 9:31).
On any given run, I do not know whether or not God wills that I actually run up the Danville Road hill towards the water tower; in some sense it really does not matter, and that particular will of God certainly is not revealed. The good and gracious will of God that certainly is revealed is that God “strengthen and keep us firm in His word and faith until we die” (Small Catechism, III:11). As His will is done in heaven, may that will of our Father, indeed be done on earth for us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +