Come to do the Will of God

As we commence the New Year I want to ask you a question.

It is a very simple question but the answer is quite profound.

What is God’s will for you this year?

Interesting question isn’t it?

Some of you will say, “I haven’t got a clue”

Others will give a theologically correct but incomplete answer, which may indicate that you are not really sure but this sought of sounds like the answer I should give.

Others may respond with absolute conviction that you are sure, which usually indicates that you are fired up about something and therefore God must intend you to do it.

Which may or may not be the case.

So what is God’s will for you this year?

I could answer the question by refering you to one or more of the great commands of the Bible.

Love God, Love your Neigbour.

Or Go into all the World and Preach the Gospel.

But all of these need some sort of context to your own situation.

And usually result in telling you that you need to do something.

Which you do!

But let’s take a different approach, let’s look at the lived experience of Jesus and see what those who followed him made of this experience.

A Prophecy, a Prayer and a Pattern of Behaviour

One of the most confronting scenes in all of Scripture is Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene found in Matthew 26:36-44

This is the point of decision, the dark night of the soul, the pivitol moment in Jesus’ life.

Will he go through with it or will he bail out?

The fate of humanity rests on this moment of decision.

Will he do God’s will?

Well we know the answer otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here today.

But let’s look at this prayer, the pattern of behaviour that underlines it and see how Jesus’ followers saw this as the fulfillment of a prophecy.

Matthew 26:36 makes it clear that Jesus was facing incredible emotional distress.

So much so that we read in the parrallel account in Luke 22:39-46 that Jesus was in such distress that his sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood.

Emotional distress if it is strong enough has physical manifestations.

Tears are normal, shaking and being ill is fairly common.

Physical pain can sometimes accompany great distress and in some rare recorded occassions of extreme distress, sweat as drops of blood.

Yet even in the face of this pressure we can see a pattern of behaviour in Jesus’ approach.

Matthew 26 and Luke 22 both tell us that Jesus intentionally set aside a time and a place to wrestle with this decision

He went to a quiet place, he set aside the time to do so.

There is an intentionality about this time of prayer.

He bowed with his face to the ground, here we see a behavour which indicates a humility before God the Father.

Jesus knows that he asking something big and he comes to that question with a physical approach that clearly demonstrates an attitude of submission.

Then we see in Matthew 26 in verses 39 and 42 and again in verse 44 these incredible words, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.””

In the words “My Father” there is “an intimate communion of the Son of God with the Father, whose will he delights to do.

The issue is not whether or not Jesus should accept the Father’s purpose, but whether that purpose need include the horrifying cup of vicarious suffering, or whether there is some other way. Hence the remarkable blend in this verse of a clear request with the acceptance that that request might not be granted.” (R.T. France TNTC Matthew, 1985)

This pattern of behaviour tells us something incredibly important.

Jesus was willing to accept the Father’s will. I

f there was another way then that was his request, but if not then he would willing accept the cost no matter how horrifying it was.

‌It isn’t a question of would he or wouldn’t he accept God’s will.

That possibility isn’t even raised in Jesus’s prayer or evident in his pattern of behaviour.

Instead it is simply a request, “Father what are the limits of your will in this situation?”

​This brings us to the Prophecy that is fulfilled in Jesus’ pattern of behaviour and what it said to Jesus’ followers.

Psalm 40 was written by King David and in verses 7 to 8 we find these amazing words which clearly make a huge claim about being sent by God.

A claim that commentators seem to agree is not David’s claim about himself but is looking beyond himself to someone else.

David wrote in Psalm 40 verses 7 to 8

Psalm 40:7–8 NLT

7 Then I said, “Look, I have come. As is written about me in the Scriptures: 8 I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.”

This is evident in Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene and it is a prophecy claimed by Jesus for himself in John 6:38 when he said “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will.”

‌Jesus was absolutely certain that he was there to do God’s will.

There were times, such as in the Garden of Gethsemene, that he requested what we might call clarification, but he never sought his own way, only the way of the Father.

Jesus’ followers saw this absolute committment to the will of the Father as central to their understanding of who Jesus was and what he came to acheive.

So much so that when the writer to the Hebrews was presenting the arguement that Christ is the once for all sacrifice for the sins of the world they picked up on this theme of absolute committment to the will of the Father as an essential element of who Jesus is and what he has acheived.

Hebrews 10 from verse 5 says;

Hebrews 10:5–9 NLT

5 That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. 6 You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. 7 Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God— as is written about me in the Scriptures.’ ” 8 First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). 9 Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect.

Quite simply the will of the Father for Jesus was that he would be the once for all sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world and that his life would be an example to us of how we should live.

So what does this mean for us?

There is the truth that in Christ our sins are forgiven.

That is a positional statement, but it becomes null and void if this truth isn’t lived out as an experiential reality.

Doing the will of God is to live as Christ lived!

To love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself.

This is expressed as;

An absolute committment to the will of God as expressed in Scripture.

A sacrificial expression of loving your neighbour as yourself.

A passionate committment to live the Gospel message in word and deed as you go about life.

It is a sad reality that throughout the Old Testament there was this ongoing tendancy for the poeple of israel to treat the sacrificial system as an end in itself.

Instead of the intent of the system that it was to be a constant reminder that God desired relationship and out of relationship obedience and out of obedience Israel would be a testimony to the nations of the nature of God.

The people constantly reduced the sacrificial system to nothing more than a religious practice rather than an indicator of right relationship.

The same is sadly so often true of the church today.

Don’t we fall for the lie that if we turn up, at least most Sundays and “be good” during the week then that is enough.

Instead the example of Christ was that active obedience to the will of God was to love others and take the Gospel to them in whatever form was required in the circumstances.

Hebrews 10:5-9 tells us how the early church understood Christ fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 40:7-8.

Hebrews 10 verses 19 to 25 lets us know how we should now live as a result

Hebrews 10:19–25 NLT

19 And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21 And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

We can and must enter into God’s presence, confident of our place before God because of Jesus.

We can and must hold onto the hope of eternal life, because of jesus God has promised this to us.

We can and must motivate each other to acts of love and good works in whatever context we find ourselves, because that was rthe exampe and command of Christ.

The Gospel is far more than a propositional truth.

It is a lived expression of obedience and love