Sermon of the Week: “A Heavenly Pattern for Our Earthly Life”
Welcome to a new series on the Lord’s Prayer! Found in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4, Jesus lays out the blueprint for all petitions made to the Father. Through this foundational prayer, a wealth of theology springs. Each week, we will highlight a sermon by Charles Spurgeon that focuses on a different part of the Lord’s prayer and draws out its devotional implication. Below is the second sermon in this series titled “A Heavenly Pattern for Our Earthly Life.”
“What is the Lord’s will for me?” I’m sure we have all asked that question at some point in our lives. To desire to do the Lord’s will is right and good, and Jesus stresses in the Lord’s prayer that it should be a constant request we bring to Him. “Let us adoringly consent that it shall be so, desiring no alteration therein,” says Spurgeon at the start of his 1884 sermon on Matthew 6:10.
To do the Father’s will should be seen as a privilege for Christians, even when that means we must press on through difficulties. We may be tempted to question the Lord’s will when trials come. We may even think that he has done something wrong, but as Spurgeon points out, His plan is always perfect and should not be questioned. “Thou canst screen us from a great temptation by hiding thyself; for if even now we sin by asking reasons, we might soon go further, and provoke thee sorely by contending against thy reasons. He who demands a reason of God is not in a fit state to receive one.”
In Jesus’ prayer we see that by doing the Lord’s will, we receive a glimpse of heaven. “In heaven the will of God is done in spirit, for they are spirits there. It is done in truth with undivided heart, and unquestioned desire.” By pursuing the Father’s plan for our lives, we are advancing the kingdom of heaven and bringing it down to earth. This pursuit is not something that will come easy, but comes at great expense to us. But pressing on for the will of the Father is worth every cost, knowing that eternity with our Creator is waiting. “With all the powers of our innermost being, with the whole life of God within us, let us be stirred up to do the will of the Lord on earth as it is done in heaven.”
Excerpt:
OUR Father’s will shall certainly be done, for the Lord “doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.” Let us adoringly consent that it shall be so, desiring no alteration therein. That “will” may cost us dear; yet let it never cross our wills: let our minds be wholly subjugated to the mind of God. That “will” may bring us bereavement, sickness, and loss; but let us learn to say, “It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.” We should not only yield to the divine will, but acquiesce in it so as to rejoice in the tribulation which it ordains. This is a high attainment, but we set ourselves to reach it. He that taught us this prayer used it himself in the most unrestricted sense. When the bloody sweat stood on his face, and all the fear and trembling of a man in anguish were upon him, he did not dispute the decree of the Father, but bowed his head and cried, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” When we are called to suffer bereavements personally, or when, as a holy brotherhood, we see our best men taken away, let us know that it is well, and say most sincerely, “The will of the Lord be done.”
Read the rest of the sermon here.