SPECIAL DAY: September 1 - Labor Sunday

September 1, 2002 - Lesson: Matthew 6.10b

Sermon Title: Doing God's Will

Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

INTRODUCTION:

Pontius: I wonder if God can really hear me? Hey God! What should I do with my life?

The voice of God is heard: Feed the hungry. Right Injustice. Work for peace!

Pontius: Just testing!

God: Same here.

Another Pontius Puddle:

Pontius to his turtle friend: Sometimes I'd like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice when he could do something about it.

Friend: What's stopping you?

Pontius: I'm afraid God might ask me the same question.

Pontius' Pilate is drawn and written by: Joel Kauffmann, 111 Carter Road, Goshen IN 46526-5201 USA

  1. Both of these cartoons highlight a concern with God's will and purposes for life.
  2. It is a sometimes comforting and sometimes confusing subject.
    1. Let's explore it a bit
    2. See if we can make some sense of what is being asked for in our recitation of the Lord's prayer.

MAIN BODY:

  1. We pray in the Lord's Prayer:

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

  1. What is God's will in heaven?
    1. Do you know anyone who has been in heaven?
      1. Do you know anyone who can clearly and succinctly report on how God's will is done in heaven?
      2. You may think you do not, but you do.
    2. We know one person who has been in heaven and clearly and truthfully may help us to understand God's will.
      1. That person is Jesus.
        1. That is if you accept the reality of his pre-existence.
        2. That he is from heaven and returned to heaven.
      2. What has Jesus taught us and how has he demonstrated for us God's will?

(John 4:34 NRSV) Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

(John 6:38-40 NRSV) for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. {39} And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. {40} This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day."

      1. What he has demonstrated is vastly different from the ways in which human beings have sought to use God's will.
    1. God's will in heaven is demonstrated by God's original creation and his recreation.

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

  1. What we observe with great clarity is the conflicts that we human beings have with God's will.
    1. It started in the beginning with Adam and Eve.
      1. They decided to listen to a different voice.
      2. It got them into trouble and that trouble has continued to this day.

Pro football star Sean Gilbert sat out the 1997 season because the Washington Redskins had offered him only $20 million over the next five years, $1 million a season less than the figure that came to him last summer, he said, as a revelation from God. (1)

      1. What is the difference between the last illustration and the following one?

Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind writes:

You can be sure that anywhere God leads you, he is able to keep you. He never allows more to come on us than we can bear (1 Corinthians.10:13). Whatever he orders, he pays for. We do not have to live in a constant struggle if we learn to lean on him for the strength we need. If you know God has asked you to do something, don't back down just because it gets hard. When things get hard, spend more time with him, lean on him and receive more grace from him (Hebrews 4:16). Grace is the power of God coming to you at no cost to you, to do through you what you cannot do by yourself. Beware of thoughts that say, "I can't do this; it's just too hard." Sometimes God leads us the hard way instead of the easy way because he is doing a work in us. How will we ever learn to lean on him if everything in our lives is so easy that we can handle it ourselves? (2)

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

Megan Goodreau, a senior, at Green Bay Southwest High School wrote the article, "Deaths leave Southwest students with questions about Gods plan." in the August 23, 2002 issue of the Green Bay Gazette. (3)

"Every freshman, sophomore, junior and senior at Green Bay Southwest High School has so many new questions. Some thoughts are much deeper than others, but each has had something cross their mind at some level in the past three months.

"In these past three months, four of our classmates have passed away. These are classmates. When you think of the word 'classmates,' images that come to mind are those of children, kids and teenagers.

"These were people who were young, who barely started living their lives and who didn't even get to graduate high school. They weren't given the chance to experience the things in the world that people who die of old age do.

"With these ideas in our heads, so many questions arise. Every person looks at these tragedies from a different angle, and therefore so many thoughts of different depths come up. These thoughts range from, "Why was it these people?" to a question as depressing as

"'Who is next?'

"It is quite disturbing that 16-, 17- and 18-year-old kids are conjuring up thoughts like these in their minds.

"Sure, these deaths help make us aware of the unfortunate things that inevitably happen every day, but why do they have to keep repeating themselves? The first death at Southwest was more than enough. It should have ended there, but in reality it shouldn't have even started. All we want to know is when it will stop.

"With that question in mind, the only thing to be said is that only God knows when it will stop. This is hard for many people to understand, but it is Gods plan and it is only natural for us to question his plan. The answers to our questions, once again, can only be answered by God himself. There was a reason for him taking these people from our lives and having them pass on to the next life sooner than the rest of us.

"Maybe it was because they had completed all of their 'duties' here on earth, or because he needed them up above to watch over us and keep us safe. Quite possibly he felt those people were just that much stronger than the rest of us. It could be something completely different, too. None of us can know for sure.

"Until we have the opportunity to enter Gods great kingdom and gain a greater understanding of all the tragedy that has befallen us, we need to move on and live our lives to the fullest. We need to keep our faith in God alive and allow him to work in and through us, so that we may live the life he has planned especially for each and every one of us.

"With a strong faith in God, anything is possible. He will be there for us in rough times, but also in happy times when we often take him for granted the most. The more we continue to learn about God and trust in him, the closer we will come to the answers we are so eager to find.

"Given the opportunity to know and love someone as brilliant, strong and powerful as God, we should all feel so blessed. With that thought in mind, we can all rest assured that Krystal, Justin, Chris and Megan are enjoying the pleasure of being with this hero early, and that they are being held in his arms at all times. They are safer now than ever, and they get to experience firsthand the love that God has to offer to all of his people.

"Through all of our sadness, grieving and pain, I hope and pray that all of us can keep our wheels of faith in God turning all the time. If anyone can pull us though tough times, it is God. Until it is our time to be with Him, we will keep our friends who have passed on in our hearts, their families in our prayers and God on our sides, so as to keep us all safe."

I an appreciate the anguished questions that are raised by these experiences.

I was asked to do a funeral for a Mukwonago High School student who had been car surfing in the High School parking lot.

She was riding on the hood of the car when she fell off and was run over.

When asked "Why?" I said 9it was because of the circumstances of the situation. No one made her fall off. She was in a very dangerous situation and it went out of control.

Life is like that.

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

      1. Earlier, 1 Corinthians 10 was quoted,
        1. Read the whole of verse 13 the context opens a wider window of understanding.

13No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it, (1 Corinthians 10:13, NRSVA).

        1. No testing that is not common to everyone.
          1. In Paul's day common included all the people in that known world.
          2. In our day it includes what may happen in the whole known world.
    1. God's will is often used to provide understanding for many of the negative and even violent acts that we experience.
      1. God is getting our attention.
      2. God is seeking to correct our lives.
      3. God is punishing us for our sins.
    2. Where in the life of Jesus do you find him using these tactics on or with people?
      1. It just is not done
      2. He ought to know, and he does.
  1. We live in a dark, dangerous, conflicted and contrary world.
    1. It is not God's fault when disasters befall or harm occurs
    2. Jesus in two instances reveals the cause and nature of the question why bad things happen to good people.
      1. Jesus and his disciples met a man who had ben born blind.
        1. The disciples asked Jesus who had committed the sin that had causes this condition.

1As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, 7saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see, (John 9:1-7, NRSVA)

      1. At another time Jesus spoke of two tragic incidents and the source of them with warnings to be ready at all times for the end of one's life.

1At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? (Luke 13:1-4, NRSVA).

      1. So bad things happen for at least three reasons.
        1. We are at the mercy of genetic
        2. We are at the wrong place at the wrong time and suffer because of the wrong actions of others.
        3. We are at the wrong place at the wrong time and natural disasters impact on us.

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    1. What Jesus is revealing is that we need to accept the responsibility that is ours and as a part of the faulty, frailty of the whole human race.

As Ernest Henley wrote in his poem, Invictus, we are the masters of our fate the captains of our soul

Out of the night that covers me.
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll,.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Dr. Suess also wrote, "Oh, the Places You'll Go" (4)

"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go."

    1. We do what we want to do; we don't do what we don't want to do.
      1. That does not make it easier.
      2. It does make it understandable and takes the onus from God where it does not belong.
      3. Jesus Christ is the life giver, not the life taker.
  1. The Bible is specific about only so much when it comes to God's will.

(Romans 12:2 NRSV) Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.

(Ephesians 1:3-11 NRSV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, {4} just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. {5} He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, {6} to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. {7} In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace {8} that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight {9} he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, {10} as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. {11} In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,

(1 Thessalonians 4:3 NRSV) For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication...

  1. Our only recourse is to align ourselves with God's will as revealed in Jesus and the teachings of the Apostles.

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

CONCLUSION:

You have a tank of tropical fish. In their fragile environment, you have total power and authority, and responsibility for and over the fish.

To take care of them you need to see that they get food, heat, light, medicine, plants, aeration, and sanitation.

You can permit them to swim about or you can catch them in a net and transfer them to another tank.

Your fish are completely in your power.

  1. From their fish eye view you are their God.
    1. How are you going to treat them, and take care of them?
    2. Even the fish have a type of "free will."
    3. Within the confines of their tank they can swim wherever they wish, run from you or towards you, fight with each other, and love each other.
    4. They can, and may, flick their tails and hide behind a rock or a plant when they see someone approaching.
  2. There is a way in which we are analogous to the fish.
    1. How does God take care of us.
    2. With love and generosity, with mercy and graciousness, with compassion and forgiveness.
    3. Let me read again from the:

Paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer
by St. Francis of Assisi

OUR FATHER most holy,
our Creator and Redeemer,
our Saviour and our Comforter.

WHO ART IN HEAVEN
in the angels and the saints,
giving them light to know you,
since you, Lord, are light;
setting them afire to love you,
since you, Lord, are love;
dwelling in them
and giving them fullness of joy,
since you, Lord,
are the supreme, eternal good,
and all good comes from you.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME,
may we grow to know you better and better
and so appreciate the extent of your favors,
the scope of your promises,
the sublimity of your majesty,
and the profundity of your judgements.

THY KINGDOM COME,
so that you may reign in us by your grace,
and bring us to your kingdom,
where we shall see you clearly,
love you perfectly and,
happy in your company, enjoy you forever.

THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN,
so that we may love you with all our heart,
by always having you in mind;
with all our soul,
by always longing for you;
with all our mind,
by determining to seek your glory in everything;
and with all our strength,
of body and soul,
by lovingly serving you alone.
May we love our neighbors as ourselves,
and encourage them all to love you,
by bearing our share
in the joys and sorrows of others,
while giving offence to no one.

1. Chuck Shephard, "News of the Weird," Funny Times, May 1998, 21.

2. Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind, 194-195.

3. Megan Goodreau will be a senior this fall at Green Bay Southwest High School. Contact her at meggy153@new.rr.com

4. Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go (New York: Random House, 1997)

(top)    Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)