Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Your Will Be Done

Matthew 6:9-13, John 10

by Dave Wilkinson

September 5, 1999

"Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." This is how Jesus teaches us to pray. In these words, Jesus invites us to share His own life.

Doing God's will is the most important activity in the world. The will of God is of such enormous magnitude and majesty that it completely overshadows every other aspect of the Christian life. Doing the Father's will is the one gigantic, central theme that should dominate the lives of all God's children.

That is why Jesus put it at the very heart and center of His prayer. Why had Jesus come to earth? To do the will of God. Again and again Jesus emphasized this fact. He tells us in John 6:38: "I came down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent me." In the garden of Gesthemane, in the struggle before going to the cross, He resolved the struggle with the affirmation, "not My will but Your will be done."

Jesus invites us to pray the prayer he prayed -- "Your will be done" He not only invites us to pray as He prayed it, He also invites us to mean it as He meant it.

This is not a narrowly focused prayer. It is not just "Help me do your will." It is "Your will be done--on earth as it is in heaven."

Now it is obvious from the fact that we are told to pray this, that God’s will is not yet being done on earth as in heaven. There is something happening there that is not happening here -- but it ought to happen here. That’s good news. Because it means that the evil and the mayhem we read about in this morning’s paper are not the will of God for this world.

It’s a big prayer. It is a prayer that God’s will shall be done by people and through people, instead of being rejected and broken and defied by people.

This is not a narrowly focused prayer. However, the prayer can only be honestly prayed by one who desires to personally do the will of God in the here and now. It is hypocritical for us to pray for God's will to be done in the whole earth or by other people or in some future day if we have no interest in doing ourselves, right now, in our own daily lives.

We are called to obedience and we want to obey. But obey what? How can we know what God's will really is?

There is no shortage of advice and advice givers regarding knowing God’s will. Unfortunately, they disagree. One person says, "Love God and do as you please" while another insists, "to find God's will you need to deny your desires." One teacher says: "God's will is normally the most logical alternative" while another says that true faith is shown by doing those things that seem irrational to us --- that if you can figure out a good reason, you aren't acting from faith." One counselor says, "God's will is known through your intuition" while another insists that feelings are misleading --- God gave us minds for a reason and directs us through rational thought.

It's not meant to be that hard. God is not playing hide and seek with us. God is not a cosmic Easter bunny who stashes his will out of sight like eggs in the tall grass. He doesn't send us running through life trying to find his will while he stands up there somewhere saying: "you're getting warmer."

No.

In the 10th chapter of John, Jesus describes himself as the good Shepherd--the Shepherd who takes total responsibility for His sheep. Jesus tells us that He takes upon Himself the responsibility for our guidance. "He knows us by name and He leads us out."

Jesus' analogy of sheep and shepherd is not tailored for our pride. Sheep are notorious for being exceedingly stupid. They make the same mistakes over and over again. They lose themselves without meaning to simply by nibbling from one grassy clump to the next with the greener grass always beyond the next fence.

This picture of our sheepness does not do much for our pride. But it should do wonders for our peace of mind. Jesus assures us that God knows that we have little sense of where we are going and that we experience tremendous confusion. He tells us that God takes a great amount of initiative to guide us in the proper direction. This ought to give us tremendous security as we seek to know and do the will of God.

God is not playing Easter bunny and he's not playing any other kind of game either. He doesn't play mousetrap. He doesn't say, "ha, ha, you thought this was the right way but it wasn't. Go back. Start over, better luck next time." We need to get rid of these distorted concepts of God's character. We must trust God enough to believe that He rewards those who seek Him. He doesn't leave them high and dry.

Paul Little writes: I have known people who have been paralyzed and could not act because they did not have some kind of electrifying liver quiver about some course of action. If you are facing a specific decision in which God has not given you specific guidance through His word, postpone the decision if you can, until the way seems clear. But if you must decide by next Saturday and next Saturday comes and you still don’t have clear guidance, then you must trust that God will guide you in the decision. After assessing the factors, launch out in faith saying, "Lord, as I see it, there are four equally valid possibilities in front of me. I see no particular advantage or disadvantage in any of these options. So I am going to go down route three unless You close the door. I am trusting that You won’t let me make a crucial mistake.

"If we do that," Little continues, "we can act joyfully believing that God has guided us. Because He has promised to guide us. We don’t have to spend the next twenty-four years second guessing ourselves as to whether or not we are in the will of God. The God who loved us enough to die for us is not going to play games with our lives."

To understand Jesus' words in John 10 is to realize that God's guidance is not something reserved for Christian heroes. It is a precious gift to each and every believer. The picture of a sheep certainly doesn’t depict a spiritual superstar but an ordinary believer. And Jesus talks about giving guidance to all His sheep. He makes an explicit promise in John 10:9: "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."

However, there is one very important thing that needs to be said. There is no point in trying to know the will of God for your life unless you have taken a vital first step. That step is to enter by the door--to become a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

According to John 6, some people came to Jesus and asked: "What must we do that we may be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered very specifically and clearly. He said: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." People must come to Christ in a commitment of faith to Him as Savior and Lord. Then, as God’s children, they can be guided by Him as a Father.

George MacDonald wrote: "Obedience is the opener of eyes." This is simply another way of saying what Jesus said in John 7:17: "If any one chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own." Your decision of obedience precedes your theological knowledge. Do you want to know the will of God? Ask yourself first, are you willing to do it once you know it? Why would God give more light to a person who is not making use of the light he or she has already given in Jesus Christ?

The first work of God is to believe in him whom He has sent. Without that first irreplaceable step, all other attempts to know and do the will of God are futile.

Ben Patterson, chaplain at Hope College, writes: "When I was in college I got into an argument with the campus atheist. He told me that if I prayed, and that our residence hall would levitate six inches off the ground, then he would believe that there was a God. I asked him if he would commit his life to this God after the miracle was performed. He said: "Of course not. That is another question entirely."

Jesus would say to him that the two questions are one and the same. Do you want to know what God wants you to do? Ask yourself first: Are you willing to do it when He shows it to you?

You can know God’s will. Realize, first, that God’s will in most of its aspects is already fully revealed. Be sure you are familiar with it in the word of God. And in those areas where He has not been specific, be assured that God intends to guide you. He promises to be our Shepherd.

The will of God, is not like a magic package let down out of heaven on a string, a package we grope after in desperation and hope sometime in the future to get hold of.

The will of God is more like a scroll that unrolls every day. In other words, God has a will for you and for me today, tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Now it may be that the decisions we make today will commit us for three months or two years or five or ten years or a lifetime. But the fact remains that the will of God is something to be discerned and lived out every day of our lives. It is not something to be grasped as a package once and for all. Our call, therefore, is not to follow a plan or a blueprint, but to follow the Lord Jesus Christ who has promised to be our Shepherd.