Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 15 – January 1978
Doctor…. Please Go Ahead
Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on 1Thessalonians 4:3a
Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 49
Scripture reading: Genesis 22:1-14
Psalter Hymnal: 60; 252; 452
Brothers and Sisters, boys and girls, young people, congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!
“Thy will be done!”
What am I asking when I ask that?
What is that will of God?
Of course there are plenty of occasions on which we DO NOT KNOW THE PRECISE WILL OF GOD.
The thing HE is going to do.
We do not know that; for example, if I will live tomorrow or if it is the Lord’s will that there be peace in Australia next year; whether my child shall have a happy marriage or if I shall get a better job than the one I have now. In a way it does not make much sense for a Christian to ask God that HE WILL DO THAT PART OF HIS WILL, for if we ask it or not, He will!
Thy will be done!
But that will of God I do not know about I had better leave completely in HIS hands! I had better not go to the devil either to try and find out about it, like some people do who study horoscopes or read tea cups, or pore pensively over the lines of a hand. Maybe there IS something there that COULD tell me something, but the Word of God says “KEEP OUT!
At the most you, yes you SHOULD pray about this to your Father, placing this whole matter of THE UNKNOWN trustingly into His hands, saying: “It is good that I know that You are MY FATHER and not some fearsome Stranger! It is good that I know that, God, so I had better trust You! Let YOUR will be done for then it will be good no matter what You do, and if You lead me then through the valley of the shadow of death make me THEN discover in YOUR GOOD TIME what YOUR Rod and YOUR Staff are capable of doing!”
But this prayer is not the passive prayer about God’s UNKNOWN WILL, NO, it is first and foremost the Christian’s active prayer about that perfect will of God, which he DID make known, that will of God we find, short and to the point, in that word from 1Thessalonians: “THIS IS WHAT GOD WILLS: THAT YOU BECOME HOLY THAT YOU ARE MADE SAINTS: YOUR SANCTIFICATION.
To pray, then “Your will be done”, is like a patient saying to the doctor, “Doctor, you had better go ahead with the operation, you’ll have to cut deep, but you know best!” That’s the practical way Jesus prayed this prayer in Gethsemane’s garden. Not my will but Thine…!
And then Jesus had to go and DO that will by allowing Himself to be captured, beaten and mocked and tortured; by going actively and obediently into the dark tunnel of cross, death and hell.
When we pray this prayer, as CHRISTIANS, as CHILDREN who have the right to say “Father” to God, we pray it not just as people watching how God does His will on a sinful earth, but we pray it knowing that WE are called to do it, and we pray that IN US the Lord will show what He can do. In ME first of all.
Did you notice that the Catechism here makes the mistake (it seems) that our kids often make? They come home from school bursting into the kitchen and say “Mum..! Me and Mary saw a fire engine” The wise mother answers: “Who did you say saw that fire engine?” And they correct: Mary and I…. I last… the other first. That takes some learning.
But when it comes to people having to be changed, people having to be put painfully into the mould of God, THEN we would say: “Someone else first, thanks, I maybe come later”. But no, NOW we must say “MYSELF first,” I and all people to do God’s will, to be made healthy again under the sharp scalpel of the heavenly Doctor…!
First: WHERE do we pray this? Answer: here, on earth!
That HERE in THIS PLACE, as in the heavens, the will of God shall at last NOT JUST BE KNOWN but then also done. That is a prayer of conflict, because the will of God is NOT POPULAR here.
It is unpopular even in many churches, let alone in bedrooms, kitchens, classrooms and factory lunchrooms or on radio waves. The majority of people shall decide what will happen, but the will of God as revealed in a holy Bible…? Come off it..!
BUT THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD: YOUR SANCTIFICATION
Your being SET-APART IN SUCH A WORLD that the will of God shall HERE by YOU be done. And that, says the Catechism, by each one of us in his particular office or vocation or job. You know, there is a let of unrest in the free world about that office, vocation or job. Kids do not know what job to train for. And those who DID train for a job often find themselves chucking it away sometimes after long years! People have migrated, even if only to get a chance, to get into another job.
Now sometimes our Lord DOES call you from the one thing into another. Sometimes He calls into new things that almost frighten us. But a lot of our unrest and changing of jobs apart from some plain old discontent with wages etc. is an UNSURE-ness, UNCERTAINTY about the question: Does God want me here? I can do so little. I am bottled up I am all in a box. Could it be that we have not yet prayed as we should pray ‘LORD YOUR WILL BE DONE HERE BY ME?’
The place where you do your work, and that holds for the man as well as for his wife at home, is the place where God wants me to do His will. It is no good praying for the Chinese to do God’s will in China before I have faced the question: am I doing GOD’S will here, faithfully and gladly putting heart and soul into the job, the task He gave ME to do in MY little corner? Am I right where I am? That’s up to GOD to judge first of all. The question for YOU is another one: ‘WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW, AM I THERE BECOMING A SAINT OF GOD?”
Am I there standing out clearly and faithfully as one appointed by the Lord Himself? For this is the will of God: …your sanctification! At home and at work, here, in this profane earth as well as in the church!
“Lord, Father” — we pray, “do it HERE, not only in heaven…! Do it HERE, not only in church!” And He can!
Whenever we are busy with God’s creation there is sin to be fought, as we say NO to the devil’s perversions but also as we say YES to God’s good gifts that they may build up the children of men. This prayer is for the Christian what the Mark of the Beast is for the enemy of God.
That mark on hand and forehead goes wherever HE goes, and boy, do the enemies of God know how all of life is religion!
But the Christian knows that, too, and so he, too, bears a mark.
Lord, make us DO your will! Your will, NOT as it comes to us as WE THINK in dreams or thoughts or wishes, the way Popes and monks got it long ago when they cried “GOD WILLS IT” and sent men to Arab lands to fight the blood-spattered Crusades for the possession of Palestine! Nowhere in Scripture God said He willed His people to do that: Let us be careful when thinking that GOD WILLS something that is not clearly in scripture.
Your will, Lord!
And that is first of all a local thing: Go ye…! Yes, but beginning at home as My witness!
Your will, Lord!
And that is revealed in the Law, too, the Law of love, the Law of grateful self-sacrifice for Jesus. The Law that must be taught to the children, the Law that must be brought to expression in Australia.
Your will, Lord!
Christians know that their action to proclaim the Kingship of Jesus is needed HERE, when we talk about a Hospital for the needy and about schools that build (NOT BREAK) sound and wholesome morality.
Your will Lord!
It can come knocking at our door in the form of poor strangers. And we pray: Let it be done! If that is to cost us time and money and energy – SO BE IT – if it is God’s will, He will replace all that from His endless store-rooms!
Your will Doctor — you are ready to operate and I do not always like Your medicine! But I KNOW it is good! I KNOW God’s will alone is good — so Doctor, yes please go ahead!
We saw: where…
And then: WHEN?
Well, we pray it on Sunday to begin with. We find out on Sunday, too. That is not the last thing we need out church services for! For checking up on God’s will. What is it again He wants? What is it again we must ask HIM to do in our lives? We NEED that!
Some of us — I know — are pretty easy-going in that respect.
Some of us I suspect come here in church once a week (roughly) and that’s it. For the rest no bible study, no part in specific Christian work. Just a Sunday morning.
Now you will say “this is better than nothing”. If at times it is a dead habit, at least it is better than a bad habit like not going at all or going to the pub instead.
Yes, but what is the will of God? IS THAT now becoming your flesh and blood? Is that now the thing YOU PRAY that may be done? Is that the thing you WANT to know so you can DO it? If not, then chances are that you are not a Christian. If the fruits of the Spirit are not there in you at least WANTING to do the will of God and ASKING HIM to have you do it, then I wonder how grateful you are that Jesus died for you. And maybe THEN you ought to ask yourself the question: ‘Do I believe with all my heart THAT He died for me and THAT I am saved for all eternity from my misery and wickedness?’ ‘What does it mean to me? Does it really make me amazed?’
For remember: “THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD – THAT YOU BE MADE A SAINT! And you have the promise that you WILL BE THAT in Jesus – Whose death meant your life if you believe. Oh, if in your life the fruits of Jesus’ work are hardly visible if you have TRADITIONS but no life-changing song of gladness in Christ, Your righteousness, then FOR YOUR LIFE’S SAKE YOU SHOULD PRAY THE MORE ON THE LORD’S DAY: “Lord, LET YOUR WILL BE DONE”.
Yes, so that then on your week day you can pray it too, and that will mean that your Lord may take from you what is not good for His glory in you and that He may give you even thorns in the flesh if you need them to do His will!
I used to be very nervous at exams. I have done a few in my life and I can remember that the nearest I get to a nightmare is when I dream that I have to sit for my Theology exam again while my head feels like a big balloon full of saw dust. Then waking up I suddenly realise: But you DID that exam long ago! You need NOT worry! Oh! relief!
But is that right? Are we not examined each day by stricter masters than theology professors? Are we not watched and assessed by keener eyes and ears than those school teachers? GOD watches us, and… for His sake our neighbour watches us, too, and how shall a man (young or not) keep His way pure, then? How will we get through? Not by boasting, “I’m right, I’m good enough,” the way the unbeliever boasts, who thinks he’s good enough as his own examiner, his own judge.
But we know that it is not THAT easy!
Oh God! How will we make it? And then we pray: “THY WILL BE DONE!” or as that hymn has it: “THE SAVIOUR’S WORK BE DONE IN ME!”
Then this exam, this continual exam from day to day, we also place in the Lord’s hand, and we ask the Doctor to go through with it. Go through with making me into a humble saint who knows what loving is! This is the will of God that YOU shall be made into saints! YOUR holy life!
And so we pray this prayer, wrestling against the evil in us, against self-will in us. We pray it against ourselves, you and I, we have enough here to be busy praying with, before we do the will of God as the angels do it, and WE know of a salvation the angels don’t even know as we do!
We are children in the house… they the servants! And they look and at me. And what will they see?
Oh, may God give that what they see is indeed NOT JUST our nice good turn after God did His bit, but God’s will being fulfilled in us right through! Oh, may they see sinners saved by pure grace, sinners justified for the sake of Jesus carrying on in Christ because His Work does not stop halfway!
Oh, may they see people who for all their wrestling against the evil one and against sin… people who for all their striving to do the will of God will KNOW and TRUST that IT IS HE WHO WORKS IN US BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK ACCORDING TO HIS GOOD PLEASURE.
For what also is God’s gracious will according to Matthew 11? That what is hidden from the wise and the clever is revealed by a sovereign gracious God to little children!
“Yes,” says Jesus, “THIS IS THY GRACIOUS WILL!” Therefore we shall pray the harder for the will of God to be done.
It is a will of grace.
It is a will of wonder!
That will of God was that I, a dead and miserable offender, be picked up from the gutter to be placed at the Table of the King! That will of God decided that I, cleansed by the blood of the Holy Son, be given a new beginning, and be put on the road of holiness.
Shall this God leave me or you alone on that road NOW to figure it all out by ourselves? Oh I have to face the evil one, and you have to face him, too. And at times there can be in our hearts a cry of despair when we see how little progress we seem to make and how bleak and dark our heart can be filled with evil and with hatred where unselfish love should be.
But God says: “Look mate, this is My will that you shall get holy” – and then this is not just an exam. Then this Lord Jesus says, “now before you get discouraged, kneel down and pray… PRAY! ASK YOUR FATHER! HIS WILL IS that you should be holy!”
Right then, ask HIM from the bottom of your heart: “LORD? FATHER? YOUR WILL BE DONE!”
I tell you, says Jesus….
He who shall seek that, will find!
though seek you may for all your life!
He who shall ask, shall be given
though ask you must each new morning, and…
He who knocks, to him shall be opened!
For if you who are evil know how to give your children good gifts how much more will YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER give THE HOLY SPIRIT to those who earnestly ask it.
And so the question is now put before you: ‘My friend, is THIS what you really want?’
Amen!