Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Struggle: Thy Will Be Done

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

We need every bit of help we can get to learn to pray, “Thy will be done,” because we’re going right into the teeth of our culture.  The essence of American culture is the belief that the more free we are to decide for ourselves, the happier we’ll be. But Jesus Christ says every time you pray to God, you need to say to him, “Thy will be done.” That goes right against probably everything you’ve been taught in our culture. To understand this phrase, we need to see that when Jesus himself prayed it, he was in the midst of terrible agony. Let’s reflect on 1) the magnitude of that agony, 2) the immediacy of that agony, and then 3) how that helps us understand what it means to pray, “Thy will be done” in a life-transforming way.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 19, 2014. Series: The Prayer of Prayers. Scripture: Matthew 26:36-46. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. We all know there's a big difference between knowing about God and actually knowing God personally. To know anyone, you have to spend time with them. If you're a Christian, prayer is essential to have a deep relationship with God. You won't be able to know yourself, know God, or grow in your relationship with Him without prayer. Join us today as Tim Keller teaches on why prayer is such an essential part of life with Christ. Our scripture is from Matthew chapter 26 verses 36 through 46. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them,

sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, my father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.' Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Couldn't you men keep watch with me for

one hour?' he asked Peter. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. He went away a second time and prayed, my father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done. When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more

and prayed the third time time saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer. This is the word of the Lord. So this fall we're looking at the subject of prayer and huge percentages of people around the world say they pray and say they'd like to learn more about how to pray. Of course Jesus' instruction for the human race on prayer is found in the Lord's Prayer. He was asked, how do you pray or teach us to pray? And he

gave us the Lord's Prayer. But the Lord's Prayer is of not much help to us if you don't understand what all the phrases mean. Every part of the Lord's Prayer, how it be thy name, thy kingdom come, assumes a lot of knowledge about what the Bible teaches about that phrase or about that thing. What does it mean to pray thy kingdom come? What does it mean to pray how it would be thy name? Unless you understand huge swaths of biblical teaching, you don't understand how to use the model. But if you would understand what all those phrases mean then your prayer would be infinitely enabled and empowered. So what we're doing each week is we're taking one phrase from the Lord's Prayer and going to some other

place in the Bible, not to Matthew 6 where we actually find the Lord's Prayer, but to some other place in the Bible that it helps us understand that particular phrase. And today we're going to look at what it means to pray, thy will be done. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We have ‑‑ this is the only place ‑‑ I mean, this phrase is the only phrase that we have an example from Jesus' own life to help us understand what it means to pray this. This is the one part of the Lord's Prayer that we actually see Jesus praying in his life. See verse 42? May your will be done. Or the old King James, thy will be done. And we're going to need every bit of help we can to learn how to pray thy will be done because we're going right

into the teeth of our culture. Alan Ehrenhalt, a very noted writer, in one of his books he says this, he says most of us in America believe a few simple propositions. Choice is a good thing and the more we have of it the happier we'll be. Authority is inherently suspect. No one should have the right to tell others what to think or how to behave. Now that's right.

He says we in America have certain maxim slogans that we use. We get them out. These are self-evident truths. Everybody knows this. And what are they? That the more free we are to decide what is right or wrong for ourselves and have no one else tell us how to live our

lives, the happier we'll be. That's the essence of American culture. And Jesus Christ says, every time you pray to God, you need to say to him, thy will be done. Which means we're going right into the teeth of our own culture. Right into the teeth of everything probably you've been taught if you've grown up here. And so what does it mean? To understand that we look at Jesus' own prayer, thy will be done, and we need to see that he prays it in the midst of terrible agony. And what we're going to do is we're going to first reflect on the

magnitude of that agony and then the immediacy of that agony and then see how that helps us understand what it means to pray thy will be done in a life-transforming way. We're going to reflect on the magnitude of the agony and the immediacy of the agony and then apply it to how that helps us pray that I will be done in a life-transforming way. So first of all, this passage about the garden of Gethsemane and the agony he's in, let's take a look at it. First of all, I want you to see the magnitude of his agony. What do we mean by that? Well, it says in verse 37, 36 and 37, Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, the garden, and he

said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray. And as he was on his way to pray, it says, verse 37, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground. Now what's going on here? It's surprising.

We're told that as he was beginning to pray, verse 37, he began to be sorrowful, and the word sorrowful means in agony, and the word troubled means to be horrified and shocked. Something came down on him that shocked him, and his description of it from the inside is, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. I feel like I'm gonna die right here. So something began to happen and was just absolutely stunning to him.

He began to be in horror. He starts to pray three times, Lord, I don't wanna, Father, I don't wanna do this. Now it's absolutely right. The reason I use the word magnitude to talk about this aspect of his agony is it's perfectly fair to compare Jesus as he's going to his death to many of his followers

as they went to their death. Many of you have been in Oxford, in England, you know the college town there, you know that at the intersection of the big St. Giles street and Beaumont street there is a martyr's memorial and the memorial is there because of people who were burned at the stake there or nearby. And two of the people that were burned at the stake were Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. They were being burned at the stake for their faith. And Hugh Latimer, as the flames were coming up,

Hugh Latimer was heard to say these are very famous words. He says, be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day by God's grace light such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out. So there's lots of stories like that of Christians Lots of stories like that of Christians going to death, serving their God cheerfully, not afraid. When death's cold sullen stream shall o'er me roll. We just sang that. Then Savior, take me, bear me, a ransom soul. Lots and lots of other Christians have died better.

Didn't have anything like the horror and the shock and all this, they had much more inner peace and tranquility and they were much more poised. See, it's true that Jesus prayed three times, thy will be done, but first he prayed three times, I don't want to do this. Is there any way out of this? I don't want to do this. Is there any way out of this? I don't want to do this. And so he's talking about this

over and over. I don't want to do it. Now, we have to keep in mind that Jesus is not actually surprised at the idea that he's going to die. He's been telling people this for over and over, right? Go back, go into the earlier part of the book of Matthew or Luke or Mark or John, he's always saying, I'm going to die, I'm going to die. It's not like suddenly he says, oh, my word, I am going to die. Of course he knew that. It was something else that came down on him. So amazing, so

powerful that it pushed him into the dust. The son of God is reeling. What was it? What was it? So here's the question. Why was it that Jesus Christ was nowhere near as poised and peaceful in the face of death as many of his followers? And the answer is none of his followers have ever faced a death like this. In fact, no human being ever faced a death like this. In fact, no human being ever faced a death like this. What was unique about this death? He tells you. The cup. The cup. Let this cup pass from me. Now, in ancient times, the term cup could mean simply a suffering, horrible

ordeal, but in many cases it meant judgment. Do you remember how Socrates died? He was sentenced to death, so how did he die? He drank the cup. He drank the cup of poison. Because the cup meant, it was a metaphor for judgment. It was a metaphor for fiery, suffering judgment. And of course that's also what it meant in the Old Testament.

Because all through the Old Testament, whenever the prophets talked about the cup, they meant God's judicial punishment and wrath on human evil. God's judicial punishment and wrath that human evil deserves. So for example, in Ezekiel 23, it says Ezekiel is telling people that they have sinned against God, and it says, you shall drink the cup of ruin and desolation and tear your breasts. Isaiah 54, you will drink the cup of his fury and you will stagger.

And that's what we see Jesus Christ doing. Staggering. See, kind of tearing at his breasts. What's going on? Because the judicial wrath of God on human evil is beginning to come down on him now. And we'll get to what it means by beginning. It's beginning to come down on him now, which means he's beginning to experience what he was going to experience fully on the cross, which was the abandonment, rejection, God withdrawing his presence.

Now the reason why, almost certainly, that's what's going on is because, you notice in verse 36, it says, sit here while I go over there to pray. Now as he was going to pray, he would have started praying. As he was going over to pray, he would have started praying. And that's when it hit him. And Bill Lane, who wrote a great commentary on Mark

many years ago, tries to, in his commentary on Mark, not Matthew, but same thing happens in the book of Mark and also in the book of Luke that tells about this. And Bill Lane, in his commentary on Mark, was trying to explain why is it that as Jesus Christ began to pray, horror came down on him. And here's what he says. He says, the dreadful sorrow and anxiety out of which, this is Bill Lane's commentary, the dreadful sorrow and anxiety out of which the prayer for the passing of the cup springs is not an

expression of fear before a dark destiny, nor a shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering. It is rather the horror of one who lived wholly for the Father and who came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven open before him." See, Jesus Christ, the only perfect human being, would have known the joy of the Father's presence to a degree that none of us ever have experienced.

You know, many people over the years have written accounts of what it's like just to get close into the presence of God and sometimes actually sense his love on our hearts and there's some tremendous accounts in history. You know, Blaise Pascal, when he died, they found sewed into the lining of his coat some experience he had that took two hours just experiencing God's love one night. It totally changed his life. And he wrote it down, what the experience was like, and he sewed it into the lining of his coat, the coat he always wore. And yet, Jesus Christ would have known that kind of joy.

Every time he prayed, that kind of joy, that kind of presence, that kind of love, at degrees that we would not have known, and now, guess what's happening? Why the horror? Why does he feel like I'm about to die? happening? Why the horror? Why does he feel like I'm about to die? Why is he far, far, far in far more agony than any person, any of his followers? Because God was withdrawing

from them. Latimer and Ridley and people like that, they were dying with a sense of his presence, but Jesus Christ sensed God's absence. And he was beginning to get a foretaste that was gonna come down on him, on the cross, which is essentially the experience of hell, essentially the experience of eternal and cosmic abandonment. We were built for the presence of God and Jesus Christ even more

because he was the second person of the Trinity. And as he began to experience that being pulled away from him, he went into absolute agony. He was beginning to taste the wrath of God. He was beginning to taste it. That's the magnitude of his agony. That's why he is in such agony. Now, before moving on, let me just say something real quick. Real quick. Do you believe in the wrath of God? Or are you a typical New Yorker who says, well, I don't like to talk about the wrath of God and hell and all, oh, my goodness, I believe in a loving God. Now, I want you

to know when I was a young man and I was more prone to irritation, one time after a service here at Redeemer, a woman came up to me and said that. She says, you know, I love a lot of what you say but I tell you I believe in a loving God, not a God who sends people to hell. And because I was in a more irritable mood I talked to her. You know, you really, very seldom should you say to people in private what you can say rather winsomely to a big audience like this. The very same thing when you're standing in front of somebody in private is

really probably at least ill mannered. And I said, well, let me ask you this. You have a God of love that doesn't get angry at people. What did it cost your God to love you? And people, what did it cost your God to love you? And she said, well, it didn't cost my God anything. I said, well, then that's not love, that's sentiment. The more you understand the wrath of God, the more you understand the love of God because the love of God, according to the Bible, was that he came and took that wrath himself. See, the deeper the grasp, your grasp of God's wrath on sin, the more wondrous is the cost

that he bore in order to forgive us and save us, and therefore the more wondrous is love. The more angry a God at sin you've got, the more loving a God and gracious a God you have as you stand at the foot of the cross. And so here's the magnitude of Jesus' agony. He's beginning to experience the wrath of God. Now the second thing I'd like to talk about before we get to prayer is I also want you to notice the immediacy of Jesus' agony. Now, many, many, many commentators and theologians over the years have brought out what I've already brought out, and that is that Jesus Christ died with far less inner peace than his followers. Why? Because he

was taking the cup. He was sort of smelling the cup. Maybe he was even getting the first taste of it. And it was just, it was just, it was staggered. It just knocked him into the ground. You know, Luke says that as he was praying, blood came out of his pores, which is the mark of someone in shock. And so that's the magnitude. But what about the question of the immediacy? Immediacy means why is God letting Jesus Christ experience this now? Why not wait for the cross? Now the only person I know who's really

theologian of the past who addressed this was Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th century American philosopher and minister. And years ago I read a book, I read a sermon by him on this text, actually on Luke, the Lucan version of this text on Garden of Gethsemane and it's called Christ's Agony and I've never forgotten that sermon. In fact, every time I've ever preached on this subject, you're going to hear echoes of what Edward said. And Edward says, why was it that Jesus Christ

experiences, gets a foretaste of this terrible thing now. Why now? And the answer is, according to Edwards, the disciples are asleep, the guards aren't even here yet, you know, the Roman soldiers aren't here yet. He's completely alone, he's in the dark. Says when you're on the cross and you're nailed, and then the wrath of God comes down on you, well there's nothing you can do about it, right?

So, oh my goodness, it's much worse than I thought. See, the son of God in his human nature had never experienced anything like this and that's why he's utterly shocked. And that's what throws him onto the ground. But if he had only experienced that on the cross, it would be too late for him to do anything about it. But you see, everything, he is free to leave. The disciples are asleep.

The, uh, he could just slip away. The guards aren't there. This is God's way of making sure that what Jesus Christ does is absolutely voluntary, is absolutely his own action, is an absolute act of love, not an act of compulsion. When you pray to God, is it more like a chat or are you really connecting with Him in a deep and meaningful way? We'd like to help you establish a stronger, deeper, and more personal prayer life. Tim Keller's book Prayer Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, offers biblical

guidance as well as specific ways to pray in certain situations, such as dealing with grief, loss, love, and forgiveness. In the book, Dr. Keller helps you learn how to make your prayers more personal and powerful through a regular practice of prayer. Prayer, Experiencing Awe and Intimacy intimacy with God is our thanks for your gift to help us reach more people with the life-changing power of the gospel. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give.

Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You know how he says in John chapter 15, no man takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord? Well here, this is finally happening. And this is what Edward says in his sermon on this. Think of how vivid this is. He says, God brought him and set him

at the mouth of the furnace, as it were. This is what's happening in the Garden of Gethsemane. God brought him and set him at the mouth of the furnace that he might look in and stand and view its fierce and raging flames and might see where he was going and might voluntarily enter into it and bear it for sinners as knowing what it was. If Christ had not fully known before he took it and drank it, it would not have properly been his own act as a man. But when he took that cup, knowing what he did,

so was his love to us infinitely the more wonderful and his obedience to God infinitely the more perfect. It's almost as if God was saying to him, here is the cup that you were to drink. This is the furnace into which you will be cast if they are to be saved. There is no other way. Either they perish or you perish. See how terrible the heat is. See what pain and anguish you must endure. Is your love such that you will go on?" Now, why, why should we be looking at that? Because Jesus Christ in the dark, when no Jesus Christ in the dark when no one is looking but God.

And when he's told, here's what you have to do, does it? Let me give you some high theology for a second, and yet it's so moving. The Bible talks about there being two atoms. Jesus Christ is the second atom. You know the places where it talks about that, First Corinthians and Romans? Paul likes to talk about Jesus the second Adam, why? Well, Adam was our representative,

and the things that Adam did fell on us. The first Adam was put into a garden, and God says, obey me about a tree, the tree of knowledge. And he says, don't eat the tree of knowledge, remember that? So the first Adam was put into a tree, the tree of knowledge. And he says, don't eat the tree of knowledge, remember that? So the first Adam was put into a garden and he was told, obey me about the tree. And he didn't. And by the way, God said, obey me and you will live.

And he still didn't. So the first Adam is put into a garden and God says, obey me about this tree and you will live and I'll be with you. And he didn't. And we didn't. But the second Adam is also put into a garden, this garden, a dark garden.

And God is also telling the second Adam, obey me about the tree, only this time the tree is the cross, that horrible piece of wood. So the first Adam is told obey me about the tree and you will live and he didn't. But the second Adam is told obey me about the tree and I will crush you to powder. The first Adam is told obey me about the tree and I will be with you. The second Adam is told obey me about tree, and I will abandon you. I will cast you into hell. You have no idea the agony you're gonna experience

when I completely withdraw from you and everything is taken from you. No one has ever been asked that. See, in the history of the world, whenever God says obey me, he says no matter what happens, then I'll be with you. If you obey me, I'll be with you. If you obey me, I'll be with you.

He doesn't abandon people who are not, who are obeying him. I mean, bad things can happen, but he's with you. But here's the only person in the history of the world who was told, obey me, and I will crush you to powder, I will abandon you. And he did, he did obey God. So his love for us was infinitely the more wonderful and his obedience to God was infinitely the more perfect

than anyone else's love and anyone else's obedience ever in the history of the world. He did it for us, he did it for his father. No one's ever been asked such a thing and no one's ever done such a thing. And he did it for us. In fact, listen, this is what Edwards has, Edwards imagines what Jesus might have said

and what Jesus did. So here's the father, he sets the cup down in front of the son and says, look at this, smell it, look at the furnace you're about to be thrown into. If you go into that, they'll be saved, but it's the only way for them to be saved, but are you ready to do it? This is what it's going to be. Are you ready for it? And Edward says, did Jesus say this? Why should I, who am so great and a glorious a person, why should I go plunge myself in such dreadful, amazing torments for people who can never

requite me for it, yet why should I be crushed under the weight of divine wrath for those who will not even stay awake with me in the hour of my greatest need? That's a perfectly reasonable speech. Why didn't Jesus Christ say, these people aren't even staying awake for me? These people will never understand what I've done for them.

Why should I, such a great and glorious person, plunge myself into such amazing torments? Why should I let this nuclear warhead of hell burst on in my innards and destroy me for them? But he didn't do that, what did he do? He said, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I know you meant well. He's gentle, he's tender, he's kind, he's forgiving, he's loving, and he obeys for us. Now, having seen all that, what does that mean? Now do you see what it means to pray, thy will be done? Listen, there is no way

to understand what this means, and there's no way you will buck your own culture unless you see Jesus Christ doing this for you. Here's what it means to apply this to our lives. First of all, I want you to see that Jesus Christ is both a model for and a power for integrity and trust, obedience and endurance. He's a model for perfect obedience

and he's a model for incredible endurance, a model for both integrity and trust, but not just a model but a power for it, which you access whenever you pray thy will be done thinking of him doing this for you. So first of all, what do I mean by obedience or integrity? Well, Jesus Christ is in the dark, and no one is seeing him, only God,

so people aren't seeing him, and there's no payoff for him to obey. Not a single good thing is gonna come out of this for him. I mean, he's just gonna be in trouble. It's just gonna be awful. Obey me and I will crush you to powder. And he obeys. What does this mean? He's the same in the dark as in the light. Many of us

cannot say that. In fact, almost all of us cannot say that. When we're in private, when we think no one's seeing, when we feel like there really won't be any consequences, we do things that we would never do in public. We would never do in the light, but we do in the dark. You know why? Because we're not people of integrity. We're not people of integrity. We're one way in the light, one way in the dark. We're one way with this crowd, another way with that crowd. Why? Because our obedience tends to be self‑serving. We tend to obey because of appearances and we tend to obey because we see rewards, not consequences. But are you moral and good? Even when it doesn't pay? Even when no one's looking? Are you the same in the light as in the dark? We are

not because we're not people of integrity. But here's how you can become a person of integrity. Look at Jesus Christ, being the same in the dark for you. Look at him, you're saved by his integrity. You're saved, if you're a Christian, you're only saved because of the integrity that he showed at this moment. And you look at that and you say, Lord, if you obeyed in the dark, there was no rewards and no one saw for me, I can do that for you. So first, he's a model and he is a power for

integrity. But secondly, he's also a model and a power for endurance, not just obedience, He's also a model and a power for endurance, not just obedience, for trust. Now, Jesus Christ is trusting God, and oh, is he trusting God. And he's trusting God in an amazing way. And he's realistic. By the way, here's what's so wonderful about his model. He is totally emotionally realistic. He's not putting on a happy face. He's not saying, oh, no, no, no, no. He's saying, I don't want this, I don't want this. He's emotionally honest. He's pouring his heart out. He's being very honest about how this is so difficult.

And yet in the end, there is no doubt that in the end, no matter how much he doesn't understand, it's so difficult, it's so hard, but thy will be done. You know, I put it in the, Elizabeth Elliott, you know, has written better on this subject than anyone. She says, I dethrone God in my heart if I demand that he act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It's the same spirit that taunted, if thou be the son of God, come down from the cross. There is unbelief. There is even rebellion in the attitude that

says, God has no right to do this. But God is God. And if he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service and I will find rest nowhere but in his will and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to. God is God and if he is God he's worthy of my worship and my service and I will find rest nowhere but in his will and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he's

up to. Now that's what you see in Jesus Christ. He is trusting God even though he doesn't understand everything. See, integrity and trust, obedience and endurance, thy will be done means first of all I'm going to obey God whether I like it or not no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the consequences. Secondly, I'm going to trust God whether I like it or not, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the consequences. Secondly, I'm gonna trust God, whether I understand it or not. I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna scream, I'm gonna cry out, I'm not in any way gonna try to repress or hide or make nice how horrible I feel right now.

But in the end, God is God, and I will find rest nowhere else but in his will. And that will is what? That will is infinitely and immeasurably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to. Now, how can you learn to trust God like that? If you want that kind of rest, you've got to trust God like that. If you want that kind of final rest and peace,

you've got to trust God like that. And you say, well, how can I trust God like that? You only trust people all the way down if you know they absolutely love you all the way down and they would do anything for you and that's what you've got here. You will never, listen, it is enormously, enormously restful to say no matter what's happening

in your life, thy will be done. Oh yeah, after you scream, but then you say thy will be done. I mean that's not only how Jesus Christ did it, and that's emotionally healthy, both ways. It's emotionally healthy to yell, just like the psalmist, all through the Psalms, he's yelling, why are you doing this Lord?

How can this be? But then in the end, you say, but thy will be done. It's emotionally unhealthy not to scream and it's also emotionally unhealthy not to say thy will be done. Otherwise you'll just be bitter and hard and angry the rest of your life. And the difficulties of life will have destroyed you.

They've destroyed your humanity. You've gotta say, not my, let this cup pass from me and thy will be done. And you've got the model here. And not just the model, but the power. Because when you see him doing this, no one's ever loved you like this. There's never been love like this in the history of the world. There's never been anyone who obeyed God and had the full power of hell come down on him for you. This is the love you've been looking for all your life. And here's what's interesting. I've had many people say to me, well, I can't

get into a trust relationship with God not because I don't trust him, but because I don't trust myself. It's not that I can't just trust God. It's like I don't trust myself. I could never keep it. It's not that I can't just trust God, it's like I don't trust myself, I could never keep it up. And you see, what Jesus is doing here answers both those issues. First of all, can you trust God enough to enter into a trust relationship with him?

Yes, look at what he's done for you. He would do anything for you. Of course you're gonna trust a God who's done this. You say, Lord Jesus Christ, if you handled the injustice that you Christ, if you handled the injustice that you did, if you handled the horror that you did for me, then I can handle my little cup for you. You took the big cup for me,

I can take the little cup for you. But on the other hand, it also answers your problems about trusting yourself. You say, well, I don't think I could ever keep a Christian, I don't think I could keep a trust relationship up. Well, guess what? Jesus comes in, he says to his disciples, I really need you I could keep a trust relationship up. Well, guess what? Jesus comes in, he says to his disciples, I really need you to stay awake with me, and they fell asleep.

Who do they represent? You and me. And does Jesus Christ say, well, the deal's off. Hey, the deal's off, man. I just, look it, I'm ready to die for you. I'm ready to take your sins off you, let you live in heaven forever, just please stay awake with me. And they fall asleep. his hour of greatest need.

And yet he still loves them. You see, there's nothing you can do that will wear God's love out for you. There is nothing you can do that Jesus Christ's love can't bear. It has already borne everything for you. You think you can do something now to wear it out? It already took this.

What do you think you could possibly do to get him to let go of you? And now, when you actually pray, thy will be done thinking of what he's done, that'll make you more and more a person of integrity, that'll make you more and more a person of endurance and trust and poise. When you pray, thy will be done thinking of him,

you've gotta think of him, otherwise thy will be done just seems like, oh my, why am I saying this? I wanna live the way I wanna live. Look at what he's done for you. And that'll make, thy will be done means I will obey you, even if I don't agree with what you've said in your word.

And secondly, I will trust you even though I understand, I do not understand what you said in my life. And if you say, if you don't look at him when you're saying thy will be done, you'll just get resentful. But if you look at him and you fall down and you adore him for what he's done, when you get up, you'll be like him and you'll become a person of endurance. There's that one place in Lord of the Rings, I won't say who it is because a lot of you know who it is, but this is a perfect illustration of what happens.

There's this little passage near the end of the Lord of the Rings, but even as hope seemed to die it was turned to a new strength and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue. Do you want to become like a creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue? then pray thy will be done. Or as George Herbert puts it, for my heart's desire unto thine is bent,

I aspire to a full consent. Thy will be done. Let's pray. Thank you Father for showing us what your Son Jesus Christ did for us that will enable us to pray this most challenging part perhaps of the Lord's Prayer. Thy will be done.

It's the hardest thing we have to pray and yet we've been given more help from the life of your son for this particular petition than for any other part of the prayer. Turn us into creatures as stone and steel that no despair or weariness can subdue. Our hearts desire and divine are bent we aspire to a full consent. In Jesus name we pray Amen. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. It's our hope that today's teaching encourages you to go deeper in your prayer life. We invite you to help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great Gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit GospelAndLife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2014. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Music