Get With The Program
Introduction:
It really doesn't matter what you do with us Lord, Just have your own way with our lives. These words were spoken by an old lady sitting in a church and heard by Adelaide Pollard as she herself sat sulking and praying to God to bless her plans and do what she wanted done… Jeremiah 18 the story of the potter who had become displeased with his jar and crushed it with his hand and started all over again… these words were written in 1902, they still resound with the same impact and power in our lives… Have thine own way Lord…thou art the potter I am the clay.
We find in the 6th chapter this one of two (2) petitions as set forth by Christ in the model prayer. As we move forward today I wish to challenge us to examine what it means to sing have thine own way lord. I want to invite you to stop praying to God to bless what we are doing and start praying to God to help us do what he is blessing. I want to help you realize what it really means to pray thy will be done.
The bible has a lot to say about the will of God, but when you look at it from the theological perspective there are 3 fundamental aspects of God’s will that we are taught in scripture:
The comprehensive will of God That is, God’s over all plan that incorporates all people, all creation that God brings together to accomplish his good pleasure. Theologians like to divide it into terms of God’s providential will, His sovereign will, His permissive will, but this all fancy language for God will have the last word.
The Desired will of God which interestingly may or may not come to pass. This is based on the fact that he made us all free moral agents. The last chapter of 2nd Peter clearly expresses that it is not Gods desire that any of us go to hell, but he does not and will not force us to accept the freehand of amazing Grace. We must choose for ourselves if we will receive the message of the gospel.
The revealed will of God this primarily speaks of his word that we as believers are obligated to obey. It is this aspect of Gods wills that I want to discuss briefly today. See, the fact of the matter is that we can pray that God’s sovereign will be done, but ultimately that's going to happen whether we want it to or not. The most relevant and difficult issue related to God’s will is us getting to the place to where we can surrender to what we know God wants us to do.
Mark Twain once said, “it is not the scriptures I don’t understand that give me trouble, but it is what I do understand that gives me trouble.” I find that this may be true of many of us today. There are those among us, that may suffer from biblical illiteracy,- those who don’t know what is right; however; I believe that there are many more who suffer from Biblical indifference- we don’t do what we know what is right.
In this petition Jesus is teaching us how to surrender our hearts to God’s Divine Agenda. He is attempting to teach us how to submit our lives to the revealed will of God and get us to the point where we can pray like that nameless old woman, “it really doesn't matter what you do with us lord just have your own way in our lives.
See we are saved by grace. Let me be a little more Theologically precise, we are saved by Grace alone. Saved by a free gift of God’s favor. That is given and paid for by the finished work of Christ. Even though we are saved by grace it is not a license for us to do our own thing. We are still responsible for living in accordance with God’s will.
I have found that many of us have struggled to know Gods will and Do Gods will (Pharisees Jn 7:17)
We must be receptive to His will. Well that reception starts with the heart. We need the right type of heart. What type of heart does it take?
I. Heart of Self Denial A young man was feeling distracted with many of the things in the world, which he felt kept, him from being fully committed with God. He felt tired of fighting with his flesh; he sought to rid himself of his distractions so he joined a monastery. He asked one of the wise and old monks, “sir since you have been here and in sole concentration do find yourself still wrestling the devil?” No I find myself wrestling with God…I look to lose. There are times when we try to bring God down to our level that’s a battle we must lose. We must rack up on some losses. The 4th Chapter of Matthew we find Jesus in a battle with satan, He defeated satan with the word. Look at how He did it he said “it is written” in the 26th chapter though we found him in midst of another battle one with His own flesh in the garden of Gethsemane. If the truth be told, many of us spend more time in the garden wrestling with our own flesh than we do in the wilderness wrestling the devil.
II. Heart of Strong Faith One of my spiritual mentors told me that when you are helping people with spiritual tragedy there are three principles to remember: God is good, God is all powerful, and terrible things happen.
Faith – is trusting that God is good and has all power in spite of the bad things that are happening in our lives around us everyday. A heart of strong faith means to trust the purity of God’s heart. We trust his motives.
Look at Job, he worshiped God. (Cattle, Children, wife, servants). It also refers to trusting the power of God’s hands. (David and Goliath) God is bigger than our problems. He’s bigger than our pains, troubles, sickness. He is bigger than all that we face.
III. Heart of Secure Patience We miss God’s will because we’re too much in a hurry. We don’t walk in God’s will because we don’t want to wait on God’s will. (the golden calf exodus 32) Their problem was that Moses had been in the mountain too long. They were tired of waiting on Moses.
If you’re going to walk in God’s will you must wait on him. I didn’t say that, the Bible says it:
Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.
Psalm 27:14 Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.
Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
2 Cor. 4:17-18 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
18While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.