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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Rev. Sjirk Bajema > The Will Which Is God’s Way makes Our Day! | Previous Next Print |
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MATTHEW 6:10b
(Readings: Matt.4:1-11; 26:36-46; 6:9-10)
The Will Which Is God’s Way makes Our Day!
Congregation in our Lord Jesus…
They say, "Where there's a will, there's a way".
And these words couldn't be truer about this third request to our Lord's Prayer.
For God's will is his way for us.
And since God's will is what he really feels inside for us - the love beyond all loves - going his way opens up all the way to heaven's gate itself!
Just think, that is where it's practiced perfectly after all!
When we pray that we do his Will, like it is in heaven, there's no self-will there anymore to get in the way!
So our first point is this … GOD’S WILL IS HIS WAY FOR US.
It reminds me of an old story.
It was a story which for a while I couldn't make any sense of.
This story goes like this:
A scorpion asked a horse to ride across a raging torrent. "Why not?" said the horse, and he obligingly started to swim with the scorpion on his back.
Halfway across, the scorpion stung the horse. The horse, fatally poisoned, said, "We'll both drown now."
"Why did you do that?"
And the scorpion said, "Because it's my nature."
What this world wants to do - in other words, its nature, which is its self-will - in the end will destroy it.
Someone who hasn't been changed on the inside through faith in Jesus Christ can only distort and destroy what should have been a good arrangement.
Someone who doesn't believe is like that scorpion on the back of the horse.
The horse which symbolises God's grace.
But they don't see that - they end up biting the very hand that feeds them!
Congregation, our natural nature is so opposed to God's nature!
Later in Matthew our Lord Jesus says that the rain that falls - so those blessings which we have physically now - falls on the righteous and unrighteous.
The difference, of course, is if we see that rain, or being on the back of that horse, as being God's blessings or not.
If we do, then we have to pray this part of our prayer.
And if we pray this we have to do it too!
For if God's Will is his Way for us then it's his Word which we must obey.
That is his revealed will after all.
This is certainly no fatalistic wish, some 'Que sera sera' attitude, like that song of the '60's.
A song which became the title song for a television show.
As those lyrics go, "whatever will be, will be, the future's not ours to see, que sera sera."
But God's will calls us to do the exact opposite.
We are to be fully involved with whatever happens; and we're able to fully know how to deal with each happening; even how to shape so many happenings; because it's in God's will - the Bible!
By God's Spirit upon our hearts, we can and we do known His will for our lives - that’s true wisdom.
Some of us may have studied or read English literature of the 19th century.
One of the most prominent authors of that age was Thomas Hardy.
Yet for all his writing talent Hardy showed his real lack of wisdom when he finished his novel "Tess" with the grim words, "The President of the Immortals had finished his sport with Tess".
How different this is to those who are truly wise, to those who have the mind of Christ?
For they believe in a God whose name is love.
They know, with the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 8, verse 32, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all - how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?"
Brothers and sisters, young people, don't we only have to look to heaven to see how it's happening already?
That's what the Lord's Prayer says as it asks that we do his will just like it's done in heaven.
And so we come now to a second aspect to our text.
Here we note … IT IS PERFECTLY DONE IN HEAVEN.
Now you could be wondering - but how do we know what heaven is like?
Who has gone up to heaven to tell us what it was like so that we could live that way?
Aha!
You've got it - haven't you?
The question should be - who was it who came down to us from heaven?
Now, we know from the Bible about the angels above.
In the Old Testament there is Ezekiel's vision, in the first chapter of his prophetic book, where each cherub is equipped with four faces, and the chariot itself with wheels within wheels, so that its "drivers" were always ready to take it wherever the Lord wanted it to go, thus showing the kind of obedience that heaven loves.
But wasn’t it our readings, from the beginning and near the end of Jesus’ ministry, which really brought that obedience down to earth?
It is this obedience in its absolute sense which we see in the life of Christ.
Oh, yes, there are certainly examples of human obedience - Noah, Abraham, Joshua, Samuel, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John, Paul, and the Philippians - but the greatest of them all is the One who alone has saved them all!
He who is the Saviour alone - our Lord Jesus Christ - he perfectly prayed this prayer.
As the devil tried his worst to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, after forty days of fasting, our Lord proved this prayer.
"It is written" the Saviour said four times!
As it is in heaven it was on earth in this God-Man!
Right throughout his ministry Jesus did as it had been foretold that he would do.
Few things are more obvious about the life of Christ than the fact that he was steeped in Scripture.
And so at the end as he groans out the words in Gethsamane, "not as I will, but as you will", Jesus knows completely what they mean.
The Father's response showed several times how perfectly his Son pleased him.
Whether at his baptism by John, or the reflection of glory in the transfiguration, we see what heaven is like as all there live in the joy of God.
By faith our prayer looks up.
In the original Greek heaven appears before earth because that's the emphasis they wanted to have.
You might notice that in English we usually put it last.
So it literally reads, "as in heaven also on the earth".
But what sadness for those who cannot be heavenly-minded?
How is it for one like Beethoven, who died all alone?
It's said that when they found his body his lips were drawn back in a snarl and his fists were clenched as if he were shaking his fists in the very face of God and of high heaven.
He could see God's will, but to him it was only a hell; his response was bitter resentment and smouldering anger.
Not only was he blind physically - he also never came to see spiritually.
And, yet, say these words with love and trust; say them gladly and willingly; and heaven is on earth.
As the creatures above live in his love; and as his own Son perfectly fulfilled His will, thus showing his love; so even now we begin that way of real love.
In the words of the third aspect to our text … NOW IT HAS BEGUN ON EARTH.
How different then to Beethoven is this story of death from church history:
When Richard Cameron, the Scottish Covenanter was killed, his head and his hands were cut off and taken to Edinburgh.
There Cameron's father was in prison for the same faith as his son.
And, as a way of taunting and grieving him, they showed him his own son's head and hands.
Taking his son's head and hands, he kissed them and said, "I know them - I know them.
“They are my son's - my own dear son's.
“It is the Lord.
“Good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me or mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days."
Congregation - that's the will of God on the earth!
His Way has begun.
And it is that way which we in faith go.
We hear a lot in churches these days about how the Lord can guide us today.
There are certain preachers who say that unless you go their way you will be confused about God’s way.
But how could any of us possibly wonder about the way God guides us?
Isn't it the Lord answering this prayer who gives us the light of his Holy Spirit so that we can understand and love the Scriptures?
These are the Scriptures which are no lottery.
Nor are these Scriptures in bits and pieces, as we might feel like using it.
No!
These are the Scriptures which tell us the right principles; the right way to make our judgments and to be motivated; and so think and live the right way.
As Jesus comes to the last of the three requests which are focused toward God in his prayer, he deals with how much his mind needs to be His in church.
David can sing at the end of Psalm 19, verse 14 - "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer." And he can sing this exactly because he has already confessed to his guidance by God's word.
As he sang earlier in the verses 9 till 11, "The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever.
“The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
“They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. “By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward."
What greater reward could there be than this simple service?
Which better response can come from believing hearts than that which Jesus said of the faithful servant, "I have simply done my duty.”
In the end, dear friend, you get what you ask for - you really do!
Because your prayer will always show you up.
If you don't pray, it's clear you're not going his way; if indeed you ever really knew Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!
And if you do pray, but you do it the wrong way, then that misuse of prayer will come to you too.
But if you do pray because it is what you want to say, you have made your day in every way!
Let's pray this way today - right now!
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
Lord Jesus, you who is the Living Word, the One who in Person showed how this prayer has been answered already on this earth; please, we pray, change our hearts more and more so that we will press closer to you and to your Father in our prayers too.
Thank you that we know we can pray; thank you that there is always an answer to our prayer, because of your Spirit's guidance through your Word.
May we continue on in your example and so pleading always upon your sacrifice.
This is why we pray through your saving Name alone.
Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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