Illus: A wealthy man went up to his pastor and said, “I want you and your wife to take a three-month trip to the Holy Land at my expense. When you come back I’ll have a surprise for you.” Three months later they returned home and discovered that this man had built a beautiful new sanctuary for the church. It was magnificent and no expense was spared. But the pastor noticed that there was just one pew, and it was at the very back of the church. When he asked the purpose of having only one pew in the spacious sanctuary, the wealthy man told him to wait until Sunday. When Sunday came, the early arrivals entered the church and sat in the one pew. When it was full, it automatically began to move forward. When it reached the front of the church, it came to a stop. At the same time a new pew came up at the back of the church and more people sat down. And so it continued, pews filling and moving forward until the church was full, from front to back. The pastor couldn’t believe it and exclaimed very loudly, “Marvelous! Wonderful!”
The service began, and the preacher began his sermon. He launched into his text and when 12:00 noon came, he was still going strong, with no end in sight. Suddenly a bell rang and a trap door in the floor behind the pulpit dropped open, swallowing the pastor in the middle of one of his points. The congregation responded in unison very loudly, “Marvelous! Wonderful!”
With this in mind I will try to be through by twelve O’clock if at all possible.
I WANT TO ASK YOU A QUESTION! Have you ever wondered why the Lord came and lived among us for over thirty years? If He just came to die for our sins, why didn’t He just come to earth and get it over in a matter of hours? Instead He lived among us for over thirty years! Why? Besides dying for our sin, He also wanted to teach us HOW WE ARE TO LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE!
Look at our text in Matthew 26:39 again. Jesus prayed, “…nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” We can learn much by this short prayer.
There is nothing sadder than watching a person throw their life away. We see it so often!
Life is valuable and any time something is valuable, it should handled very delicately. For example:
• Today the price of gold is so valuable it is worth over eight hundred dollars an ounce. It is so valuable it is measured in ounces
• Diamonds are valuable and because they are valuable, they are measured in carats
• Today gasoline is valuable and we measure it out in gallons
But the most valuable thing on this earth is LIFE! It is so valuable it is measured out in seconds, minutes, days, weeks and years. Life is so valuable that:
• Howard Hughes would have given everything he had if he could have bought some more time to live here on earth
• Elvis Pressley would have given everything he had if he could have bought some more time to live here on earth
Life is the most valuable thing on this earth and yet there are people that waste the precious time God gives them. Life is the most valuable thing on this earth and it is sad that many are throwing their lives away.
In this short prayer, the Lord teaches us two important things. We see -
I. WE HAVE A WILL FOR OUR LIFE
Notice, in this prayer as He faced the cross, Jesus said, “Not my will…”
WHAT IS HE TEACHING US?
He is teaching us that WE HAVE A WILL FOR OUR LIFE!
The Lord lived in a human body just like every one of us here today. Everything in that human body that He lived in cried out, “DO NOT DO IT!” But He prayed, “NOT MY WILL BE DONE!”
You and I live in these mortal bodies that are created by God in such a way that we can DO AS WE PLEASE, WE HAVE A WILL OF OUR OWN.
• No one is going to make you attend church
• No one is going to make you tithe
• No one is going to make you live a godly life
• No one is going to make you use your talents for the Lord
• No one is going to make you faithfully serve the Lord
You have a WILL FOR YOUR LIFE and you can do WHATEVER YOU PLEASE!
He lived among us for over thirty years in a human body just like ours and He recognized that HE HAD A WILL when He prayed, “Not my will.”
Many live their lives as if they are gods and the only thing that counts in this life is WHAT THEY WANT TO DO!
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger was talking to some young people about attending church. They laughed it off as if they had better things to do than come to church and worship God their Creator. As he saw them laughed it off, he could see they were laughing in the face of God. He said that he wanted to grab them by their shoulders and shake them and say:
• Who do you think you are to laugh in the face of God?
• Who do you think you are to act as if you have more important things than to worship the God who created you and put the breath in your body to breathe?
We see WE HAVE A WILL FOR OUR LIFE and -
II. GOD HAS A WILL FOR OUR LIFE
Jesus recognized God had a will for Him when He prayed, “THY WILL BE DONE!”
It is true; we can do WHATEVER we please with these bodies! WHY DID GOD MAKE US THIS WAY?
God did not want us to be robots that would serve Him. He gave us a WILL so that we could choose to serve Him.
The scripture teaches us God has a WILL FOR OUR LIFE. We see that so clearly in the scriptures.
• The life of the Lord Jesus demonstrates that, when He prayed, “NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE.”
• The life of the apostle Paul demonstrates that, when He said, in 1 Cor. 4:19, “But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will…”
• James 4:15 teaches us that God has a will for our lives when James was inspired to write, “For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”
Notice again, in the Lord’s prayer He prayed… “…Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
Illus: During the US civil war, Abraham Lincoln met with a group of ministers for a prayer breakfast.
• At one point, one of the ministers said, "Mr. President, let us pray that God is on our side."
• Lincoln’s response showed far greater insight; "No, gentlemen, let us pray that we are on God’s side."
Pastors through the ages have thought, “WHAT CAN I DO TO MOTIVATE THIS CONGREGATION?”
That is an excellent question. We would agree that the key to involvement is motivation. But how do we motivate those who aren’t self-starters? How do we get people involved when it’s their nature to be wallflowers sitting on the sidelines watching others carry the load?
Some think that the problem is laziness. That might be true for some people. However, in most cases I do not believe that laziness is the problem. I believe that the reason people stand on the sidelines in the church is because they are often involved in other kinds of activities.
It’s not that they won’t do anything; it’s that they don’t understand the need to do the IMPORTANT thing.
Illus: In North Carolina, a church sign identifies the problem. The sign reads, "The main thing is to see that the main thing is the main thing."
I know people that know God has a plan for their life, but they can not see it as the MAIN THING IN THEIR LIFE. They fail to recognize the importance of doing God’s Will.
A good example of this is the priest in the Old Testament that we read about in Malachi 1:1-6.
Notice that God had a WILL FOR THE LIVES OF THESE PRIESTS, but they did not see it as being important.
• These priests were dishonoring God because they were not giving the best to Him
• They despised the name of God by offering defiled food on His altar
• They offered up blind, lame, and sick sacrifices while they kept the healthy animals for themselves
• Their approach was to give God what no one else wanted
God’s response was, "I have no pleasure in you." He refused to accept an offering from the hands of those priests.
Today we do not offer up animal sacrifices, we offer ourselves as LIVING SACRIFICES.
In Romans 12:1, we read, “ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
Every one of us operates under certain restraints. That is:
• We don’t have unlimited money
• We don’t have unlimited time
• We don’t have unlimited strength
We have to decide what is the most important thing for us to do with our lives.
With these restraints, we have to determine if we are going to:
• Do our will
• Do God’s will
God has a will for our life.
• It is not some complicated legal document that it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to explain to us.
• It is not something God hides from us and says, “SEE IF YOU CAN FIND IT!”
How do we discover God’s will? Christians have done all kinds of things to find God’s will for their life. Some have actually used games to try and discover God’s will for their life.
Illus: Remember those big black 8 balls they used to sell? They were about 6 inches in diameter – way too big to be used on a pool table – and they were filled with a dark filmy liquid. You were supposed to hold the ball in your hands, ask a question, shake the ball vigorously, and then turn it over. On the bottom of the ball was a “window” where an answer would “magically” float to the surface!
It would answer your question with answers like, “yes” or “no” or “maybe.”
Illus: Brother___________ in this congregation wanted to know if it was God’s will for him to marry ____________. He shook that large eight ball and the answer came floating to the top. It said, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Some have used Bible games to find God’s will for their life! They will place the Bible in front of them, open it, close their eyes and take their finger and wherever verse it lands on, they accept to be God’s will for their life.
Illus: But that does not always work either. One man shut his eyes and placed his finger on the scripture and he read it:
• In Matthew 27:5, he read, “Judas … went away and hung himself.”
That didn’t make him very happy, so he closed the Bible, opened it again and it plopped open.
• In Luke 10:37, he read, “…Go and do thou likewise.”
Really frustrated now, he tried once more and the Bible fell open.
• In John 13:27, he read, “…That thou doest, do quickly.”
People have done all kinds of things to find the will of God for their lives, but there are two ways we can know the will of God for our life.
(1) BY USING GOOD COMMON SENSE
Illus: It seems that, down south, some recent excavations for a new highway had contributed to causing a flash flood. Volunteers risked their lives to rescue victims stranded in the deluge.
• One old man was up to his knees in the rising waters when a rowboat came. "Hop in, we’ll save you!" He said, "No thanks, the Lord will provide."
• A short while later, a motor boat was sent to save him. By this time the swirling waters were over his waist, but again he declined: "No thanks, the Lord will provide."
• Soon the water was up to his chin, so a helicopter was dispatched at the last minute. "Climb aboard, this is your last chance!" He said, "Thanks anyway, but I don’t need you, the Lord will provide."
• The old man drowned and was mad as a hornet, banging on the Pearly Gates. He bitterly complained to St. Peter, "I prayed and I prayed for the Lord to help me, so why did He let me drown?"
• St. Peter looked at him, shook his head, and said, “We sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more do you want?"
God gives us a brain and He expects us to use it. There are things you do not need to pray about. The common sense God gave us tells us what to do.
Illus: A man was on a submarine for the first time. He asked the captain if there were things he should know to do and not do. The captain said, “In a submarine there is only one golden rule: While on aboard a submarine remember to count how many times we dive. Add the number of times we surface, and then divide by two. If there is one left over, don’t open the hatch.”
Many times, God’s will for our lives is revealed by using GOOD COMMON SENSE! There are some things we do not need to pray about, just good old common sense reveals to us what we should do with our life.
(2) TURN TO THE WORD OF GOD
It is very simple to know God’s Will for our life. God’s Word says, in Ecc. 9:10, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; ….”
Illus: Remember when David appeared in the Old Testament and Goliath was defying the God of Israel. When David appeared on the scene:
• He could not help but to see Goliath because he was so HUGE
• He could not help but to hear Goliath because he was so LOUD
And David’s said, “WHY HASN’T SOMEONE SHUT THAT GIANT UP?”
David said that it was something that needed to be done and if no one else would do it, he would!
If God opens a door for us, then who are we to refuse to walk in?
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger was asked to speak at a church that was a different denomination than his. He was talking to a pastor friend who had heard about him being asked to preach at this church. The friend said, “Surely, you do not plan to go where the Word of God is not preached correctly!” Dr. Belger said, “If the Word of God is not being preached correctly there, and God has open a door for me to preach it correctly, WHY SHOULDN’T I GO!”
God’s Word says, “…whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might!” If God opens a door, it is our responsibility to step up to the plate.
Conclusion:
God has a will for our life. However, it is possible to be saved and not be in the perfect will of God.
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Some have come to Christ and their life has been wrecked and scarred by sin. They can never live in the perfect will of God, and they will have to live in the PERMISSIVE WILL OF GOD!
• Sin has destroyed some people’s health
• Sin has destroyed some people’s wealth
• Sin has destroyed some people’s marriage
• Sin has destroyed some people’s careers
• Sin has destroyed some people’s opportunities
God will take them as a broken vessel and put their life back together again and will use them in His permissive will.
Eccl. 9:10 “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”
We see –
I. WE HAVE A PLAN FOR OUR LIFE
II. GOD HAS A PLAN FOR OUR LIFE
