Where there’s a Will there’s a Way

Rev. Sjirk Bajema

 

Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 49

Scripture Reading: Matt.16:21-28; Luk.22:39-46

 

 

Brothers and sisters, young people…

 

In this third request our Lord teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

 

“Thy will be done!” We pray that God’s will be worked out in this world.

Isn’t that a bit strange, though? I mean, that we ask God’s will to be done! Remember, what we have before us is the third request of the Lord’s Prayer. So we’re asking for God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

 

But aren’t we Reformed? Don’t we believe in predestination? Isn’t God working out everything according to His marvellous plan?

Why, then, do we ask that His will be done? As if God needs us mere mortals to carry out His plan!

 

This is a good question. And it can be answered in two ways. You see, congregation, the Bible speaks of the will of God in two ways.

 

As Calvinists we know of God’s will of decree. God’s decree refers to God’s plan for all things. It was this will – this plan – that was fixed by God before He began the work of creation. As He says in Isaiah 14 verse 24, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.”

 

Yet, the other way that the Bible speaks of the will of God is when it mentions God’s will of command. For we don’t need to pray that God’s decrees will be kept because there’s no way they will fail. “As I have planned,” we heard the Lord in Isaiah, “so it will be.”

But we must be praying always that God’s commands, His instructions, His laws, will be obeyed by us, and by all men. It’s of the most ultimate importance that we live by God’s holy commandments. That’s why we pray for God’s grace to obey His Word in whatever situation we might be in.

 

For the best example as to how this is to be done, we need turn to none other than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself! He prayed this same prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. There, in that Garden, as He faced the agony and the suffering that He was about to go through for us, He prays in Luke 22 verse 42, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

 

Congregation, the third request is no cheap and easy line that Christ taught us to pray. It was part of His own experience! He made His life our pattern – our model to live by!

And then Christ gave us His Spirit to help us follow His example. This leads us to our first point. THE CONFORMING TO GOD’S WILL.

 

The conforming to God’s Will

 

Answer 124 begins by telling us that the third request means, “Help us and all men to reject our own wills.” Reject your wills! As Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “not my will but yours be done.”

 

The first part involved in conforming to God’s will is that we reject our own wills. Reflect for a moment about your everyday life. Think of those hundreds of decisions that you make each new day.

Isn’t it true that we often want to go our own way, to do our will, rather than His will? Don’t we so often want to follow in our lives the words of that very self-centred song, “I did it my way!”? And isn’t it so often that we would rather pray, “Thy will be changed,” than “Thy will be done!”

 

Our Lord Jesus calls us. In Matthew 16:24 He says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Denying ourselves! That means putting pride out of our lives. Because pride is that first sin. The sin that man thought he could be god. The sin that says we would much prefer it our own way. In fact, we think our way is best of all. But as Jesus calls out to us from Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”

 

Pride won’t get you anywhere. Being proud of what you do, of who you are, of the family you come from, won’t do you any good. Humility will, though! In the famous words of the third beatitude in Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for the will inherit the earth.”

Why the humble? Because they are willing to lose their lives for Jesus Christ. They are giving up themselves to obey God’s will in their lives. As David said it in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you won’t despise.”

 

Only the humble person is able to pray the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Only he or she can say with real conviction, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

 

Actually, what is the purpose of any prayer? Is it to make God do my will? Do I turn Him my way? No way!

The true purpose of prayer – the real reason – is to bring my will in line with His will! Otherwise I wouldn’t be truly in prayer! And whoever tells God what to do in their prayer is only saying that He’s not truly God!

 

This is what the apostle Paul says in Romans 12:2. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

 

In prayer we are asking God to teach us all that we should do. And not only to teach us, as though knowledge is all that we need, but also that he makes us both willing and able for the task.

 

The transforming work of God’s Will

 

In this way we come to our second point. THE TRANSFORMING WORK OF GOD’S WILL.

You see, we can talk for hours and hours as to what, in theory, God’s will should be for our lives, but isn’t it a lot different, congregation, when we try to put it into practice? The transforming work of God’s will in our lives is very difficult. To apply God’s Word in a world that denies Him is hard!

 

We can think here again of our Lord Jesus, in agony in Gethsemane, as He contemplated what lay ahead of Him. As he prayed to His Father in heaven, the thought of what was ahead was alone enough to cause His sweat to be like drops of blood falling to the ground. He was not just about to face physical pain and psychological shame, He was about to be made sin. He was to be utterly forsaken by His Father on the cross! Christ Jesus – the perfect example.

 

Now, if our Lord was willing to suffer that much to do His Father’s will, shouldn’t we then also suffer, only a little in comparison, as we carry out God’s will for our lives? To ask the question is already to answer it!

 

So the Catechism draws our attention to three ways in which we’re to carry out God’s will in our lives. In the first place, we must carry out God’s will without back talk.

Back talk – you know, having that last word. Perhaps you did that the last time you had a disagreement with your husband, or your wife, your friend, your flatmate, or someone you don’t get on so well with. Now – who had the last word?

 

Like that last word we had to squeeze in, we can think we’re being clever when we talk back to God. We think it’s okay because it’s for our benefit that we forget the will of God for a moment and go ahead and do our own thing. Just this one time! That’s what we say – isn’t it?

But like the child who steals that bikkie, soon we find it’s more than one time. Because soon the biscuit packet’s empty; soon we find ourselves further and further caught up in sin and sorrow.

 

The devil’s crafty! He whispers in your ear, “Go on, it’ll be alright!”

 

When we sin like that we back-talk to God. We choose to go our own way. The apostle Paul says of this, in Romans 9:20, “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”

Congregation, God’s will alone is good. God’s will alone is for our good!

 

In the second place, we must carry out God’s will in the work we are called to do. And so in our daily work, with all our everyday things, we obey God’s will.

 

Some of us have difficult jobs. In those employment situations it seems that Satan has a field day with bad language, with gambling, and with that dirty talk. You might even want to get right out of there. You think you’ll be a lot better off doing something different.

Yet, if the work is not evil in itself, our calling is to live out God’s will as best as we can. We’re there to shine His light!

 

William Barclay says about this, “When we pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ we are not praying for release; we are not praying for resignation; we are praying for triumph. We are praying not to be taken out of a situation, but to be enabled to face it and conquer it and defeat it.”

 

Life for the Christian is difficult. We live in world whose will is always opposed to God’s will. And there are many things pulling from all sides that make our present jobs and our present situation look very harsh. Yet God’s will is that we carry out the work He’s called us to do. In the words of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:17, “Each one should retain the place in life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him.”

 

Then, in the third place, we are to carry out God’s will “as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven.” Certainly a tall order! For we know that the angels in heaven carry out God’s will perfectly. Yet that’s what we are to be! That’s what we’re constantly aiming at.

 

The word “willingly” means that it’s with joy in our hearts that we serve the Lord. After all, carrying out the will of God is the very core of a thankful Christian life. I mean, shouldn’t we be joyful, brothers and sisters, young people, considering the great and marvellous deeds God has done for us? And what could be greater amongst those things than the doing and dying of Christ for us? When this great fact grips us, there’s no hesitation. With Philippians 4:4, we will rejoice always!

 

Then there’s the word “faithfully”. To do God’s will faithfully is to do God’s will without alterations. That means we do it according to the very Word of God!

 

What we should keep coming back to, time and again, is that to base our decisions on the right principles. These principles we find in the Word of God – the Holy Bible. It’s through these principles that we find out the will of God in different situations.

 

For example, which school will you send your children to? Do you think you should send them to a school? By studying Scripture we see that God wants us to bring our children up in a way that honours Him.

Another one: How much do I give to the church? Looking through scriptures will give you the Old Testament principle of the tithe and of the first-fruits. An amount that is not lessened in the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament gives the impression of even more!

And the list goes on and on. What about the books and magazines we read, the television and movies we watch?

 

Sometimes asking these questions hurts. We don’t want to think. But there’s always someone’s will behind whatever you do – for good or for bad! That’s why we need to always ask ourselves: What is the will of God in each and every situation in my life? For He says something about every single part of my life!

 

In one sense life is quite simple. If the going gets difficult, there’s nothing to stop us running away from it. We can simply let life go by without ever being willing to be challenged as to our commitment.

But if we run away, if we turn our backs on God’s will, there won’t be any happiness in our lives. How can there be if we can’t face ourselves or God anymore?

 

If you do face life squarely however, if you willingly and faithfully do God’s will, in spite of the suffering and hurt, then in your life you will know peace. It’s the peace that comes with a joy and a real satisfaction that absolutely nothing else can give!

Because then His will is being done! His Kingdom is being won! We’re loving His beloved Son!

 

Amen.

 

 

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O Loving Heavenly Father, Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfectly fulfilled your will. And that’s what we pray. That in Christ’s Spirit we may keep to Your way. Because then, like Him, we will have Your peace in us. The peace that passes all understanding.

In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.