Thy Will Be Done
Thy Will Be Done
Isaiah 55:8-13
March 30, 2008
You may have heard this little story before – I may even have used it before. Regardless, it relates well to what I am about to say about walking the walk, so keep it in mind as we work our way through today’s message.
A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn and screamed in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup. Remind you of anyone yet? As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' License plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper Sticker, And the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, Naturally...I assumed you had stolen the car."
When God speaks to you and you know you have been encountered with truth, it is important that you implement that truth into your life because it’s critical that there be a life change. The Bible says that the truth sets you free (John 8:32). How do you let the truth set you free? It is needful that you take time to process an encounter with God and truth, otherwise you will never “walk the walk.” You, like the woman in our story, may be accused of stealing the car.
Let us look at an illustration of the way Jesus processed an encounter with God in contrast to the way the disciples failed to process it. Jesus and the disciples had just experienced one of God’s greatest miracles, the feeding of the 5,000. Immediately afterward, Jesus went into the mountains to pray. The disciples got into a boat and hit a storm. Mark 6:44-46 says, "And there were five thousand men who ate the loaves. And immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the multitude away.
And after bidding them farewell, He departed to the mountain to pray.”
When the Father did something through the life of the Lord Jesus, Jesus always went alone to process it. Notice it says, "Immediately…." How soon should you process an encounter with God? There ought not to be anything that comes between you and the processing, when you ask God the significance of what He did. God anticipates there will be changes in your life because of what He did. Or perhaps God introduces you to some caution by what He did or said. What happens when we do not acknowledge God’s hand in our life? Or when we do not heed the warning He gives? Our spiritual growth may get stuck.
According to Jesus, the miracles were all done by the Father; it was the Father living out His life in Him (John 14:10). So when the Father chose to do this incredible miracle, I think the Father then summoned His Son. Using my sanctified imagination, I think the Father said, "Son, I did this miracle so they would know who You are, but remember one of the temptations that Satan gave You. It was that if You could feed the multitudes You would get a crowd. ‘Command that these stones become bread’ (Matt. 4:3), and they will want to follow You." And I think the Father said, "Son, because of this miracle, they will want to make You king, not because You are king, but because You fed them." I think the Father was helping Him process as to how He ought to prepare Himself for the consequences of that miracle. And I think that is what we must constantly do: process the things God continually wants to teach us.
As you read on in the Gospels, that’s what happened. In John’s Gospel we read that when Jesus went across the sea, the multitude found Him and followed Him and wanted to make Him king. And it says it was not because He was king, but because He fed them (John 6:26). Then Jesus gave His strong message to those people that He was the bread that had come down from the Father. When He finished telling them, many forsook Him and walked with Him no more (John 6:66).
The disciples should also have processed the great miracle which they had witnessed with Jesus. They knew the Lord, and it didn’t matter what happened next, they ought to have been processing it and integrating what they had just experienced at the feeding of the 5,000. They should have seen the magnitude of the One they were now following. But they didn’t. They ran into a storm. Some of you may run into a storm. You intended to process what you heard and to integrate into your life major changes as you let God tell you why He said what He did, why you heard what you did, why you responded the way you did. He wants to tell you what He has in mind. This was on the way to the next thing. If you don’t process this one, you may miss the next encounter with God. Warren Wiersbe says if you don’t process what God wants to teach you, you don’t move on to the next lesson. You get stuck. Back to the drawing board.
In Mark, chapter 6 and verses 45-50, we read: “Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away. And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray. Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He was alone on the land. Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.
And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid."
Jesus saw them struggling with the storm, and He walked on the water to them, the first time He had ever done that. He would have gone by them, but instead He got into their boat. Then comes what happens when you don’t process an encounter with God: you may miss the next major encounter with God. The disciples were absolutely astonished to see Jesus walking on the water and stilling the storm, and Scripture uses terminology meaning "astonished way beyond measure, way beyond what had ever happened." They were missing the significance of this next miracle. Why were they so surprised? They had just experienced with Him the great miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, so why were they so astonished that He could walk on water and still the storm?
Could I suggest that if you have an encounter with God and do not let God tell you what it means and move you to make changes in your life, your heart will harden? You cannot have an encounter with God and ignore it without it affecting your heart. A hardened heart has a great deal of difficulty with the next encounter with God. Could He not say to you: "Why are you asking Me to come and make Myself real to you? I am always with you. It is just that you do not recognize that it is Me. It is not that you have to ask Me to come and do something; you need to ask Me to open your eyes to see what I am doing." In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul prays that we be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge, that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened so we might know our calling, and the rich inheritance we have as saints of Christ Jesus.
It is amazing that much of our prayer is based on unbelief, because we are always asking God to do something He has already done. "O Lord, be with us today."
"Why are you asking Me to do something I have already done? I told you I would always be with you." If you are Christ’s child, you have His Spirit living in you (Matt. 12:18). You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise (Eph. 1:13). Romans 8:9 says the Spirit of God dwells in you and if the Spirit of God does not dwell in You, you are not His (Romans 8:9-11) Do you not know you are the temple of God and that His Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16)
Don’t say, "O Lord, would You bless us?" Say, "Lord, I thank You that You are in the midst of blessing me. Help me to appropriate Your blessings – Your spiritual riches (Eph. 1:3). Help me to see it and help me receive what I know You are doing." Thank God that He is here and ask Him to help you to respond to His presence to process this vital truth. Our prayer needs to be mostly focused on God enabling us to do something rather than trying to beg God to give something He has already given. There is no question in my mind as we meet together this morning, that God has visited His people. The presence of the Lord is among us, opening our minds, and touching our hearts and guiding us to make our way to the altar and there to settle some things with God. God has been powerfully working among us.
There may be one or two of you who have not seen that or responded to that as you ought to. For you and for all of us, my life included, I share a verse from Isaiah 55, a very powerful verse: "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near" (v. 6). If there was ever a time when you ought to call on Him, it is while He can be found. The implication is that He may not always be found. He may not always be near though you want Him to be. It is a choice God makes. When He does, how you respond will reveal the intensity of your relationship to God. Did you know it was God? How did you respond? God kept you safe as you drove here this morning. How did you respond? God has kept you in the hollow of His hand all week. How did you respond?
It would be helpful for me to read on in Isaiah 55, for He then talks about His Word. He says in summary: You need to know that My thoughts and My ways are not like yours. If My thoughts and ways were like yours, you would have been making changes long before this. But in this moment My thoughts and ways were suddenly made known to you and it wasn’t anything like what you had thought. As high as the heaven is above the earth, so far removed are My thoughts and My ways to yours. These verses are intended to motivate repentance by explaining that the Lord’s plans and methods are far better than anything we can devise. He has begun a good work in you and He will complete it (Phil. 1:6). Your job is to process His work in you and not try to bring the Word down to your experience. Don’t tell God what you are willing to do. Don’t instruct God and limit God as to what He has the right to do. His ways are not your ways; His thoughts are not your thoughts. But then He has an incredible word of encouragement. He says in effect, you need to know that wherever His word goes out, it always produces that for which He sent it. He says that when we receive His word, then we can go out with joy, with singing. A word from Him can radically affect the way you respond. So He said:
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
"For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (vv. 8-13).
Whenever God speaks through His Word, He is announcing what He is about to do in your life. It is like the vine and the branch. The branch doesn’t have to make an effort to produce fruit. The branch has to abide in the vine, and it will produce fruit. And you have to abide in the Word of God and He will do what His Word has said. When I pray, I then get up expecting to see God do what He said He would do. When I finish praying, I look with anticipation to see what happens next in the activity of God. It never crosses my mind that He will postpone it or that He will delay it or that He will cancel it. God put the words and thoughts of my prayer together. Whatever God has said, He will do. Isaiah 55:11 says that whatever word goes forth from God will not return empty. It will produce that for which He sent it. It is critically important that you allow the activity of God to come to completion in your life and begin to set in motion some things that God said through your prayers. In our Lighthouses of Prayer meeting, God has led us to pray for our neighbors and friends. He is working through our prayers. First, He seeks and draws (John 6:44), for no one can come to the Father unless He first draws them. There are blinders to be removed, shackles to be broken, darkness to be dispelled (Is. 42:7, 16). That is His work. Our work is to be persistent in prayer, believing He is at work doing more than we can ask or imagine.
Let us look at the activity of Christ in your life in the area of prayer. Turn first to Colossians 1:27-29: "To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect [complete, mature] in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily."
God said He chose to make people understand the exceeding riches involved in this mystery, which is Christ in us, the hope of glory. In the Bible the term "hope" is never wishful thinking. It is always confident expectation. So He said in effect that Christ in us automatically brings a confident expectation. The term "glory" in the Bible in the simplest form is the present, real activity of God working in and through and around us. What I think Paul is saying is: Here is the mystery God wants everyone to understand. He is putting Christ in us which brings to us a confident expectation for the full, mighty activity of God working through you. When God put His Son in us He said that His Son would live out His life in us. Praise the Lord!
Because that is so significant in the mind of God He uses a number of figures of speech to help us understand it. Christ in us, living out His life in us is like God planting us securely in a relationship with the Son of God but to do it in such a way as a vine and a branch. The life of Christ is now actively flowing in us and through us and everyone around us should recognize that we are in union with Him because of what begins to happen in your life. The Christlikeness of His character begins to show in us. Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”. Is that happening in your life? Or, are you driving a stolen car?
God also uses the picture of a shepherd and a sheep. Jesus said that He wanted us to know that He is the good shepherd and we are His sheep. God has created in us sheep the capacity to know His voice, and He has given us a heart to know that He is our shepherd so when He leads us out, we go with Him (John 10:14-16). He knows where the green pastures and the still waters are and will lead us where they are. He knows where the paths of righteousness are. As our shepherd, He leads us there, and because we are connected to Him, we will experience all that He has and all that He possesses and all to which He can lead us (Psalm 23). So our relationship to Him brings immediately a confident expectation for experiencing all the mighty power of God.
When I say Jesus went off to process His Father’s miracles, what do I mean? Processing through prayer! Let us see what the prayer life of Jesus is like. There is nothing more characteristic of Jesus than His prayer life. When God puts Christ in us, He will be living out His prayer life in us. Your prayer life will take on the characteristics of Christ’s prayer life and the fruit of it. When Jesus prayed, He adjusted His life to the activities and purposes of the Father. Paul puts it this way: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). Christ was the instrument through which God brought redemption to the whole world. And we are now His instrument to bring redemption to the world around us. When Jesus prayed, He lined up His life to the purposes and plans of His Father. And when we pray, we do the same, line up our purposes and plans to Father God, through the leading of the indwelling Spirit.
We need to be very conscious of the prayer life of Jesus because as He lives out His life in us, He is going to shape our prayer life to be more and more like His. Now the bottom line of the prayer life of Jesus and, therefore, of our prayer life also, is going to be, "Not My will, but Thine be done" (Luke 22:42). When all the praying is over and all the mind and heart of the Father have been laid over our life, there will come a spontaneous cry from the heart of the Lord Jesus in us, "Not my will, but Yours be done."
But we need to understand the depth of Jesus’ prayer life. I do not know of any few verses in the Bible that describe the prayer life of Jesus more thoroughly and more completely than these verses in Hebrews 5:7-9: "…who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard...." Did that mean He was saved from death? He was heard. This gives you a new understanding of what it means for God to hear you when you pray. God did hear Jesus, and the answer was something like this: "No, Son. I cannot save You and the world at the same time." There have been moments in my life when I have cried unto God for Him to remove certain things, and the answer has come back, "No, I cannot remove those things from you and do My will through you at the same time."
He "was heard because of His godly fear" (v. 7). One of the other translations says, "…because of His reverent submission." Why was He heard? Because of His heart, a heart that was submitting to the Father’s will regardless of what it would look like. So the Father heard Him and then it says, "…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (v. 8).
Do you have problems with obedience? Let me suggest that the Christ who is living out His life in you and seeking to conform your obedience to His obedience, may take you through some times where you cry unto Him with strong crying and tears and those strong crying and tears come after a prolonged attempt to get God to do what you feel would be best. And the answer comes back, "No, I cannot do what you are asking and do My will at the same time. I cannot spare your life and the life of others."
Many have been the missionaries who wrestled through that. And there have been many parents of missionaries who have cried out night and day to God not to send their child and their grandchildren across the world. They have cried out to God with agony and tears, "O, Lord, don’t let my children take my grandchildren across the world from me!" and the answer comes back, "No, I cannot spare your child and save a people for whom Christ died at the same time. I cannot have your child stay home and the people over there hear the Gospel. I’ve got to take your child and thrust him or her into a people group that have never yet heard, and that is My purpose. I’ve got to deny your request, because there is a whole people group who would never hear if I granted your request." Christ is trying to conform His people to His image as they pray.
If you look at this prayer moment in the life of Jesus in heaven, it says, "in the days of His flesh" – that is, while He was living out His life here (v. 7). And it is in the middle of our everyday life that Christ will begin to fashion our prayer life to be like His. Verse 7 also says that He offered up strong supplications. Not only did He pray but He profoundly entreated God, earnestly pled with God, and He did so with strong crying and tears to the One He knew could answer Him.
Has He been developing that kind of prayer life in you? Have you found there are some things on your heart that you wished God would deal with? It may be the salvation of your grandchild. It may be that you want God to take one of your children out of the setting he or she is in. It may be the companions that one is with, or it may be that you suddenly realize one of your children is dating a non-believer or a profane person and may want to marry that person. So with strong crying and tears you are pleading with God to change this situation. Has the Lord Jesus brought you into that kind of praying?
I am convinced there will never be a mighty move of God until somehow the prayer life of Jesus gets ahold of us, and that it would be written of our life in this time, with "prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears," we’re finding ourselves united with Christ in beseeching the Father to do a work in our generation, in our nation and in our town. Since God’s provision is to put His Son in us, we can count on it.
Prayer was the most outstanding characteristic of Jesus’ life, and we have here in Hebrews one of the most beautiful pictures of His prayer life, but it is an agonizing one. Most of us would sense that it is describing Gethsemane, that ultimate moment when Jesus pled with the Father. We have an insight into what Jesus prayed in Gethsemane in three different Gospels, and they have all put it differently. Paraphrasing it, one says, "Father, if it is possible, remove this cup from Me…" (Matt. 26:39). In Luke 22:42 Jesus says, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me." But in Mark’s Gospel is that agonizing cry from the heart of Jesus where He uses that intimate term, "Abba" – the tenderest expression of a child to his father. "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me" (Mark 14:36).
The bottom line for all the prayer life of Jesus was "…not My will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). Then comes the arrest in Gethsemane, the beating, and then the cross. And the Lord Jesus, out of the depths of His heart could look up into the face of the Father and say, "Father, I have finished the work which You have given Me to do…. It is finished!" and He died (John 17:4; 19:30). God’s great plan to redeem a world was set in motion. The death and resurrection of Christ to deal with sin was complete. And our job in His redemptive plan began.
The process which God is undertaking in your life and mine is making us Christ-like. God has been sanctifying us since our salvation. Sanctifying means setting us apart for holiness. What does God need to accomplish in you? What is it that in the process of obedience you’re suffering? When suffering has come through acts of obedience, the Father says something like this: "I’m trying to conform you to the image of My Son. Do you know how He learned obedience? By what He suffered." When that word comes and you wish He had chosen some other verse, you then must say, "Father, ‘Not My will but Thine be done.’ There is an eternal purpose which You have for me. Not what I want but what You have chosen. Thank You, Father, that You are shaping my life to be like Your Son."
Somehow God has a mighty purpose through you, and He knows that you’re going to be pressed in on every side like His Son was. Then recognize that the word God sent to His Son on your behalf, He will bring about, and you will have the joy of seeing God’s eternal purposes work through you.
It may begin in your own home or in your church family or in the business where God has strategically placed you. It may be a friendship which God uniquely gave to you. God has prepared you for this hour. Don’t say, "Father, remove that cup from me." Recognize that the Lord Jesus is going to shape your prayer life to be like His – which is, “Not what I will but what You will."
If you have read Jan Karon’s books about Father Tim, you may remember that Father Tim calls this the prayer that never fails: “Thy will be done.”
What has God been saying to us this morning? "O Lord, not my will, but Thine be done." It will affect our prayer life; it will affect everything that God will do through us. It will help us to implement and to process what God has said because we have already released our life completely to Him. "Lord, nothing will I withhold. I release everything that is in me to everything that is in Your will. And I do that now."
Let’s close with this prayer: Father, this may be a small measure of our Gethsemane. Clarify one more time what Your will is, and then give us the enabling grace and love to respond as Your Son lives out His life with freshness in us. We find ourselves trembling because You, the God of the universe have spoken to us. You have an eternal purpose that will affect eternity for many. It will affect churches that You have established. It will affect Your people. Give us an obedient heart like unto the Lord Jesus. Thank You for placing Him within us so that we do not have to work up obedience; we just have to respond to His life of obedience in us. Thank You for the enabling that You have provided for us through Christ living in us. We enter into a confident expectation of Your mighty working through us. We will go out from here with joy and with thanksgiving, finding we are in the center of Your will. We commit ourselves to You in Jesus’ Name. Amen.