Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Jesus
teaches to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But this is a difficult petition to pray
because we have a hard time trusting God with that kind of responsibility; we
don’t quite trust that the will of God is good and wise. So, we often pray this petition with our
fingers tightly crossed behind our backs.
We’d much rather pray, “let my
will be done,” that God’s will would conform to ours instead of the other way
around.
When we begin to
talk about God’s will a myriad of questions come up. My mother is sick. Why won’t God heal her? My father is sick. Why won’t God heal him. A young high school teacher is gravely ill
and another dies. Why did God allow the
life of a woman who was in her prime to slip away? A pastor’s son is suffering from brain
lesions. Why would God allow such a
malady to fall upon one so young? There
are countless examples we could name and I’m sure you that you have many such
scenarios swirling around in your head from your own life. How could this be the will of a loving
God? How can He just stand by and watch?
There is no doubt
that this is a fallen and sinful world, such that we must suffer things like
pain, suffering, and death. Not only is
the world fallen, but so are we, our hands aren’t clean in any of it. And where there is pain, suffering, and death
the there’s the devil tempting you to anger and fear and distrust. He tempts you to think, “Where is God in all
of this? Isn’t it obvious that He’s
abandoned you? He must hate you.”
But even the
Christian life is one that’s lived under the cross and anyone who tells you
that when you become a Christian, your life will be turned around for the
better, that all worldly problems will just disappear like snow on a 75-degree
day, is uttering the lies of Satan himself.
We bear our crosses and crosses don’t just sting or bruise – they kill,
but we have a loving Father who orders all things for good.
Why is God
allowing your mom or dad to be sick without any improvement? Why does a young woman to suffer cancer and
another to die? Why does God allow
sickness and disease to befall even the young?
Why won’t God fix the things that race through your mind in your own
life? I don’t know. I don’t know.
In these instances, God’s will has been hidden; the reasons tucked away
in the mind of God. Dear friends in
Christ, God doesn’t always give us answers to every question we have, He
doesn’t reveal His will in every instance.
God doesn’t always give us answers, but He delights in giving us
promises.
A couple of weeks
ago I preached on the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father who art in
heaven. And I told you that the Father
loves to hear your prayer for the sake of His Son who was crucified and raised
for you and has not only promised to hear you but answer each petition that you
offer.
Sometimes when we
drop on our knees and, like Jacob, wrestle with God until the sun peeks over
the horizon we get an answer that’s so obvious that it hits us over the top of
our thick skulls. But sometimes, the
answer isn’t so apparent. We wait
eagerly for God to act so that mom would be healed, the brain lesions to go
away, or that the death we mourn would turn out to be just a bad dream. God answers even these petitions and, in
Christ, the answer is always, “Yes.” Maybe
not in this immediate moment, maybe not even until the Day of
Resurrection. Your mom and other loved
ones who suffer now, but in the resurrection of the faithful, their bodies will
be raised never to hurt again. Those who
your mourn who have died in the faith, God will raise them from their graves to
life everlasting.
And this gets to
the heart of the matter. We don’t always
know the hidden will of God, we don’t always know the whys to every
question. But we do know, and can bank
on, God’s will according to the promises that He makes in His holy Word. And
the ultimate will of God, that He has
revealed to us in His Word is that He desires most of all is that everyone hear
the Gospel and believe that His Son, whom He sent, died and rose again for
them.
This is, truly,
what we pray for when we offer the petition, “Thy will be done,” that the
ultimate will of God be done; that He remove everything that the unholy trinity
of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature would throw at us to take
our eyes off of Jesus there on the cross for you. That we remain firm in His Word and faith all
throughout our lives until we draw that last breath. Everything else that God wills to happen in
this life drives us to the ultimate will - that you be kept firm in His Word
and faith; that you would always behold the cross of Jesus and say, “For
me. He’s there for me.”
That’s Jesus’
prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I
will, but as you will… My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your
will be done.” Even Jesus doesn’t
relish the idea of bearing His cross, but nonetheless prays that the Father’s
will be done – that all God wouldn’t be separated from us sinful people. It was the Father’s will that His Son be
delivered over into the hands of sinful men; that He suffer and die in humiliation
and disgrace on the cross, to accomplish salvation for you; even you who
deserve nothing from God because of your sin, yet God gives you the inheritance
of His Son through His Son.
Even in our
sufferings, we have a God who bleeds, who knows what it is to hurt, to suffer,
to die. You don’t have a God who sits on
a mountaintop looking the other way. But
you have a God who desires your salvation, that you not be left alone to suffer
but has promised to suffer with you.
Your suffering doesn’t go unnoticed; our Father who art in heaven
beholds your sufferings just as He beheld the sufferings of His Son.
The will of God
that we pray for, that we can trust, is that you’re forgiven and redeemed but
to accomplish His holy will, He requires blood; the holy and precious blood of
Jesus that was shed for you. So, if God
doesn’t will that you not have every comfort this world has to offer, or that
we suffer and hurt for a time, it’s less to do with our physical comfort and
more to do with your eternal salvation.
But after Jesus
was mocked, beaten, and crucified; after the pain, the suffering, and hurt;
after the nails, cross, and death, comes the resurrection. After the cross comes glory. The Son rose and shined His light onto the
day that was darkened. And so it is for
you. After your pains, suffering, and
death of comes the resurrection of the faithful, whose bodies will rise from
the ground never to suffer pain, suffering, or death again. So it is for all the faithfully departed.
The Son shall
shine on this earth in glory once again, when the will of God will come to its
fulfillment. The dead will be raised to
life everlasting. Sickness, pain, and
hurt will be no more. Today we suffer
but on the Last Day, Resurrection Day, all worries, frets, and troubles will be
no more.
Jesus peaches to
pray, “Thy will be done.” We pray this
knowing that God’s will is always good, no matter what happens in our lives,
that though all the crosses and trials and pains we face, we would see Jesus
all the more clearly. For it’s at those
times when the world seems to be crashing down around us that the Gospel sounds
the sweetest to our ears - where Jesus and His sufferings and death come into
sharp focus. And while we suffer, we
wait with hope and patience for Christ’s coming. Take heart, have hope; the Day of Our Lord is
closer than it once was. Amen.
The peace of God,
which surpasses all under standing, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus
unto life everlasting. Amen.
