Willful Resolve Toward God's Good

Prayer

Repentance of the Will

When you pay attention to the Gospels, one of the things you’ll notice is that Jesus did not shy away from saying things that might offend others. That would stir controversy. One great example is when Jesus told the chief priests and the elders in Matthew 21 that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter into the kingdom of God ahead of them.

Consider the shock value of that statement - here they are, chief priests, the elders, they are the both the religious and community leaders. Esteemed. They taught and upheld the moral standards. And Jesus is saying that it’s the tax collectors (Jews who collected taxes on behalf of the Romans) and prostitutes - are entering the kingdom of God before them.

How could Jesus even begin to say that?! It would as if Jesus were telling a group of church leaders or community leaders that it was people like internet scammers and those involved in making pornography - that they would be getting into the kingdom of God first.

Jesus tells a parable that sets up his shocking statement, Matthew 21:28-32: “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

It’s a very simple story, father has two sons who have very different responses to his telling them to go work in the family vineyard. First one tells him outright, “won’t do it.” And that response would have shocked the moral sensibilities of the Jews listening, an openly disobedient son. But later, he goes and does that the Father asked.

Second son does the exact opposite - he tells his day, of course, Father, I’ll do it (adds the “sir” for good measure). But he doesn’t. He never goes and does the work. So Jesus poses the question to them, “which of the two sons did what his father wanted?”

Obvious answer is the first son, which is what they say. Jesus says, Yep. And in this scenario, it’s the tax collectors and the prostitutes - the people you think are moral reprehensible, unredeemable - those are the ones like the first son who said, “no,” but ended up doing what the father wanted. And because they did this, because they repented, because they changed their minds, their disobedient attitudes - they will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you.

And it’s the chief priests and elders who say the right things, they given an appearance of being respectful to the Father - but they don’t actually do what God wants them to. Jesus reminds them of how they failed to respond to the preaching and teaching of John the Baptist - they did not repent and believe him. And there’s our word again - repent.

Jesus is talking here about the repentance of the will - which is the final aspect of what we’ve been talking about in our sermon series on the Kingdom of God, what we’re calling the Magnificent Kingdom, and what it means to repent. Not just repent but repent wholeheartedly, this complete transformation (idea of being born again, complete do over) that we are to undergo in light of the fact that the Kingdom of God has come near. If we are going to enter into the Kingdom of God, we must repent in the fullness of who we are.

That means to repent in terms of our mind, way we think, what we believe, an entire change of perspective (be red-pilled) - especially in regards to spiritual realities. This is all about truth, which is always rooted in God.

It means to repent in terms of our souls, our affections, our passions, that Jesus would be our first love. Here, we talked about the transcendental of beauty. Remember, the three transcendentals are truth, beauty and goodness - those things that point beyond themselves to God himself, because they are rooted in God.

Today, we want to talk about repentance in terms of our wills. Here we’re talking about our willingness to do what God commands us to - his good. Alan Hirsch, in his book, Metanoia, says it this way - “Repentance will therefore inevitably involve obedience and a willful resolve to act in accordance with God’s will.”

This is the point of Jesus’ parable - it was the tax collectors and prostitutes who repented, whose will was transformed - to the point that they then had a willful resolve to act in obedience with God’s will. And the chief priests and the elders did not.

So it comes to us - are we willing? Do we desire to enter more fully into the Kingdom of God, to come under God’s reign - by growing in the surrender of our wills in obedience to God? That we would be increasingly resolved to obey God?

I Will Obey

In order to help us get a better idea of what repentance in these three areas looks like, we’ve been looking at some of the churches that Jesus sends letters to in the book of Revelation, because in each of those seven letters Jesus offers that church both words of affirmation and issues a call to repentance. But the type of repentance varies from church to church.

We looked at some of the letters that reflected Jesus’ call to churches, such as Pergamum and Thyatira, to repent of their minds - those who were holding to tolerating false teachings.

Last week we looked at letters to the churches of Ephesus and Laodicea, whom Jesus called to a repentance of the soul - they had forsaken their first love (Jesus!). They had become lukewarm, tepid, no passion, no zeal for Christ.

Today, take a few moments to look at Jesus’ letter to church at Sardis, because it offers a clear example of a call to repent of the will: Revelation 3:1-3...To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Just listen to what Jesus is telling this church, it’s all about being weak-willed, being unable to finish the work Jesus has for them. He’s telling them they are on the verge of death. You’re asleep, they’re sleeping walking through life - wake up! Strengthen what remains - buck up, do the work, put in the effort. Get some resolve. When Jesus says to them, “repent!” he wants them to repent of their will.

The repentance of the will has to do with the good, our willingness to obey God and submit ourselves to his will. Whereas repentance of the mind was focused on orthodoxy, believing the right things, the truth, and repentance of the soul was about orthopathy, the right passions, repentance of the will is all about orthopraxy. Praxy as in practice. Our practice, our behaviors, are to be toward the good, we are to pursue the way of righteousness.

Reason it’s so necessary that we repent is because of our sinful nature. We very much have a tendency to resist God, rebel against him. Assert our will over his. For most of us, it’s not blatant - we don’t shake our fists against God, “I defy you.” But on a day-to-day what we respond to, what we obey, are our own whims, our desires - what we think will make us happy, or make us feel successful or loved or significant or safe.

CS Lewis makes the point of saying that Christianity is at once the easiest and the hardest faith. It’s the easiest in that there’s not a prescription, a list of rules, we have to abide by in which to be considered acceptable. We don’t have to earn our way. It really is by God’s grace, what Jesus did for us when he willingly offered his life as a sacrifice on our behalf. It is through repenting - we shift from trusting in ourselves and our efforts, to trusting in Jesus, his work on the cross. In that sense it really is “easy” - available and open to anyone and everyone.

But that repentance is absolute. And this is what makes it the hardest - to entrust ourselves to Jesus means to do so entirely. When we give ourselves over to him, it is to be complete, all of who we are. We forsake our will in order to obey his good, holy and perfect will. Lewis says the dilemma is that we want to hang on - we want to be able to pursue our personal happiness (or significance or success) AND live in obedience to God. But this never works - it can’t work, there will always be conflict.

If we take the example of parable Jesus told about the two sons and took it a little further - what if the second son did end up going to work in the vineyards, but didn’t really want to do it, he was never fully resolved to it. You can just imagine what would be going on in him - he’d been doing the work, but resentfully. He’d just be wanting to get it over with so he could go do whatever it is that he really wanted to be doing (whatever young men did in those days for leisure…). He would never be fully surrendered to the will of his Father, obeying readily.

And this is the conflict that arises within us - why it’s so necessary to continue the work of repentance of the will, that more and more, we would be resolved to act in accordance with God’s good. So we want to what Jesus teaches us to do.

And it doesn’t take long to thing of examples of that battle within us - We, too, like the second son if he did end up going to work in the vineyards, we can find ourselves serving others, but grumbling about it (or about those we’re serving) the whole time. Flesh is proud, it does not like to be wrong, which is why, if we’re not resolved toward humility, we have a hard time apologizing. Or if we do, it’s “Well, I’m sorry!”

Recognize that all those fleshly whims are going to confront us as we seek to fully repentance, to live in obedience to Jesus. Flesh likes personal comfort - why son didn’t want to go out into the vineyard - whatever he was doing in the moment, he preferred that. Same things are going to confront us when it comes to serving God - coming to worship, ! We don’t like to be made uncomfortable so we avoid conflict - having hard conversations, speaking openly and honestly about our lives, talking about Jesus with others.

Flesh likes to be admired, so we’ll do things for show - to make ourselves look good. Flesh likes self-righteousness, so we hold on to grudges, make quick judgments of others. We like to fit in, belong, so we’ll compromise our principles, or engage in gossip in order to do so. So many examples - and it speaks to why it’s so essential that we engage in continual repentance of the will. Ongoing surrender - so we will, as Hirsch says, have a willful resolve to act in accordance with God’s will. Wholehearted commitment to live in obedience to Jesus (one of our core convictions, lived obedience to Jesus).

Paul paints a picture (a couple, actually), of what is involved in repentance of the will. He offers images of athletes who engage in strict training in order to win the prize

1 Corinthians 9:24-27...Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Powerful image, because if you’ve ever engaged in training hard for something, it’s a battle of will. You want to quit, it’s too hard, it hurts, this is no fun. Everything about your body is screaming - no, stop! I want rest. I’m aching here.

But the athlete presses on - they have a goal, they are not running aimlessly, boxing into the air - they have a prize they are shooting for. And they are not going to let the desires of the flesh dictate what happens. That’s what Paul means when he says, “I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave (it’s going to obey what I will, not the reverse).”

And that’s exactly what happens in athletic training - the body submits. Keep doing it over and over and you can run further and faster and for a longer period of time. When you’ve engaged in that kind of discipline, you are able to do what you want when you need to do it, in the way you want to do it. That’s true for all the discipline we try to incorporate in our lives.

Joe Frazier, when he was the world heavyweight boxing champion, said it this way, “You can map out a life plan or a fight plan, but when the action starts, you’re down to your reflexes. That’s where your road work shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, you’re getting found out now under the bright lights.”

One of primary ways we want to be disciplined is in obedience to God. We want to naturally obey God, that’s our reflexive action, to do the good in the moment. That’s what repentance of the will is all about, not living by the sinful inclinations of the flesh (all those examples we talked about earlier - our pride, our desire to be admired, be comfortable)

Instead, we naturally and instinctively want to do the good - because our spiritual muscles have been so trained. We’ve geared our will towards obedience of God, over and over, that willing resolve. We did the road work in the dark of the morning so it will show forth in the light of day.

That requires, as Paul reminds us, strict training. Notice it’s training, not trying - we will not achieve this by sheer effort of the will. So we engage in spiritual disciplines that invite us to surrender more fully to God, to give our will over to God, so the whims of the flesh are weakened (we strike a blow to the body) and our willingness to obey God is made strong. In surrendered to God we are not made weak-willed, our wills are made strong (as opposed to the church at Sardis).

By the way, this is so we can do the good. We can, like Paul, win the prize! We become like Jesus - gentle and humble heart, steadfast commitment to the truth, joyful, faithful, full of grace, compassionate, servant’s heart. So we can be with him - in full loving relationship with Jesus and with others. That’s the prize! That’s the Magnificent Kingdom!

Brings us to Spiritual Disciplines, this is the training, the soul-training exercises we engage in, in order that our wills are consistently repenting, turning towards God, a ready obedience of his will. So let me offer you two spiritual disciplines that have to do with our wills, surrendering them to God, repentance.

The first is discipline of silence. Sit quietly before God. Consider what you have to fight against - all thoughts running through your head (random thoughts, rehearse an argument, lust). Urge to go do something (this is taking too long!). Just to be before God. No agenda, just be in his presence, open, willing to receive whatever he has for you. As you engage in this practice, God will begin to reveal more of your heart to you.

Second is the discipline of fasting. Fasting is willingly giving something up for the sake of following Jesus. It’s an intentional act of declaring - I will not be a slave to this thing, Jesus alone is Lord. There’s no shortage of things we can be held by: shopping…some food or drink…our cell phones…particular app on our cell phones…sleep…In fasting we give that thing up for a particular amount of time. Fair warning - you will feel the resistance!

Silent Prayer / Corporate Prayer