Thy Will Be Done

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. [Mat 6:10 ESV]

“I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.“ [Gen 26:4-5 ESV]

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. [Luk 1:38 ESV]

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.“ [Luk 22:42 ESV]

‘And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” [1Sa 15:22 ESV]

“For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” [Mat 12:50 ESV]

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.” [Jhn 14:15 NKJV]

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” [Jhn 14:21 NKJV]

obey: /oʊˈbeɪ/ verb: to act according to what you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority; to behave according to rule, law, or instruction.

Have you ever wondered why there is such a poor witness in many a church these days? Scandals seem to be more common, and sadly, are even expected by a jaded world. Whether it be a lack of moral purity, greed, or the false idol of personal popularity, the world is watching and saying that religion is poison. And you know what? This type is! Paul warned Timothy:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.“ [2Ti 3:1-5 ESV]

So, why do we see such a weak witness in many places of the world, especially more affluent countries? The main reason, my brothers and sisters, is that the full gospel is not being preached. It is either being added to or taken away from in some fashion. We hear things like “Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you,” a prayer that is supposed to change one’s eternity. Many, many people will say they believe in Jesus–even Muslims “believe” in Jesus–that He was a real historical figure. But do they obey His will? We can also hear the gospel message go to the other side of the ditch and be told we need to tithe so much, worship so often, and perform ritualistic-type churchy works to ensure Heaven will be our final home. But, friends, neither of these two extremes place their confidence on the person and work of Christ, leaving many, many souls in a pseudo state of salvation where the individual is not “all in” so to speak.

Therefore, I’d like to talk about the dynamic between faith and obedience. In our definition of the word obey above, please note that it is a verb, and action word. I also want to establish the fact that a Christian is under the authority of Christ–He is our King whom we serve, even when other rules, other people, our own selves, or even a country’s laws are in opposition to His expressed will as recorded in the Bible. Jesus’ express will is summed up by two commandments given in the Old Testament:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” [Mat 22:36-40 ESV]

Paul echoed this royal law in the book of Romans:

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [Rom 13:8-9 ESV]

And again, the Apostle John knits together this coupling of love for God and love for one’s neighbor:

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” [1Jo 4:20-21 ESV]

Notice here that love for God and love for neighbor are inseparable? Love for a neighbor is first a commandment from Jesus, and second, when taken in context, a natural outflowing of our love for God. It is a MUST, not an option. If we take an honest look at Christianity today, especially here in the United States, how often is this command not heeded? John minces no words when he says those who hate are liars. We can see this in many who profess to believe in Jesus, but deny the power of a true, born-again, saving work of God.

Many churches today that consider themselves evangelical are being influenced by the apostate church in their thinking, and therefore, their behavior. For example, if you believe that all roads lead to Heaven, the resulting behavior is that you won’t share the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you believe that some sins have become obsolete, the resulting behavior is that you won’t warn the homosexual, the drunkard, the thief, the liar, or the sexually immoral of their need to repent. If you believe that bad people go to hell and good people go to Heaven, you will miss the opportunity to share the gospel with a seemingly “upstanding” person. If you believe that saying a prayer like the one above assures you of Heaven, without hearing the full gospel, you will not see your own soul’s jeopardy:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” [Mat 7:21 NIV]

Obedience is a key theme in the Bible, and it is wed to faith beautifully. You cannot have true faith without it. In the letter of James, he states plainly:

“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?” [Jas 2:17-20 ESV]

Here, James is saying that true faith produces the fruit of good works. It is the type of work that is born of obedience. It follows faith in Jesus. It obeys God, not man. It flows from a grateful heart for the gift of salvation wrought by Christ on the cross. Now, when Paul repeatedly denounces “works” in his letters, he is referring to works of the Law and also any kind of man-made rules, apart from faith in Christ, or even in addition to faith in Christ. Paul had to contend with some Jews in his day that insisted that circumcision for Gentiles was required for faith in Christ, to be acceptable to Him. Paul saw right through this addition to the gospel, calling it a work, a formal rule that the Jews observed which had never even so much as touched their hearts so as to produce faith in Jesus as their Savior or make them right with God. The Jews had 613 rules they followed in Jesus’ day, covering everything from morals and clothing to holy days and ritual prayers. But although many were good, these rules and regulations failed to change their hearts. For example, the Pharisees thought it was important to tithe even a tenth of their herbs, very picaune, and they were probably quite proud of it. Yet their sin was great! They constantly rejected Jesus as their Messiah, and many times sought to kill Him, and finally did, but only by the foreordained will of God. Do you not see? They considered themselves righteous for performing an act that did not involve their hearts. What part of thou shalt not murder did they not understand?

The Catholic Church is very heavy into works, teaching that so many are needed to get entrance into Heaven. This is a false gospel. How many are actually needed? When do you have enough? And, if you can’t answer those questions, how can you be sure that you are going to Heaven when you die? First of all, the Bible teaches that we are saved by grace, God’s unmerited favor and mercy, and that it is through faith, our belief in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, that grants us eternal life:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. [Jhn 5:24 ESV]

“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” [Rom 10:9-10 ESV]

This faith then assures us of our Heavenly home:

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” [1Jo 5:13 ESV]

Many Catholics usually say one of two things about their faith when asked if they think they are going to Heaven. They either say they have lived a good life, are a good person, and therefore conclude they are going to Heaven. Where is Christ’s work in this? It is all focused on the person and their own evaluation of their worthiness for eternal life. Did you know that entrance to Heaven requires nothing less than perfection? It is Jesus who lived that perfect life, who died that perfect death, and gives us that perfect life! Now the focus is on Him. He gets all the credit, all the glory due Him. The other answer I get is, “I guess I’ll hope for the best.” Dear friends, Jesus IS the best! The bible is clear:

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” … For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” [Rom 10:11, 13 ESV]

The flaw of all man-made religion is that they take credit for and get the order in salvation backwards. The Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Buddhists, New Age–any religion that stresses you need to work BEFORE the gift of Heaven is given to get to Heaven–these all focus on man’s ability to save himself and not Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. Even if there is a semblance of belief in Jesus, but it is chained to works in order to obtain Heaven, the complete trust in what Jesus did for us is compromised by adding to the gospel a requirement for salvation. For example, many people think that praying the rosary and looking to Mary will aid in their getting to Heaven. That is like asking a servant for what only the Master can give! The focus is on Mary’s favor with God to pull some strings for us. The plain truth is that we don’t need her “intercession,” because:

“Consequently, [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” [Heb 7:25 ESV] It would be like having one foot on solid ground and one foot on ice. When we trust completely in Jesus, we will have both feet firmly planted in terra firma and, as Jesus taught, a resultant obedience:

“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” [Luk 6:47-49 ESV]

Eternal life is a gift, given when one believes in Jesus in his heart:

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” [Eph 2:4-10 ESV]

Note is these verses that Paul says we “have been saved,” that it’s done! We also see we have been raised up with Him from death to eternal life. Christ’s resurrection from the dead shows His power over death, and because He lives, we shall also live with Him:

“As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.” [Jhn 6:57 ESV]

Jesus is the true bread that came down from Heaven, the bread of life:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” [Jhn 6:48-51 ESV]

Just a few verses before this, Jesus says something very interesting to the Jews:

“Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” [Jhn 6:28-29 ESV]

They wanted to know what to do, what were works acceptable to God. And Jesus tells them the first and foremost is to believe in their Messiah! He came to present himself as their Savior and the perfect image of God, and told them to believe in Him. Note he didn’t tell them to do anything other than believe! It is a matter of first things first. It is the Lord’s first will to save us and reconcile us to Himself. Because any work we do in place of Christ’s sacrifice is doomed as a way to make ourselves right with God, as doomed as the Pharisees who counted out their tenth of the mint, dill, and cumin. Their confidence was in their work, and it led to murder, whereas true faith in Christ leads to life and good, abundant fruit. The reason is because we are standing on a firm foundation, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Then he sanctifies us, a fancy term for growing in and applying the wisdom of the Lord. We come into God’s Kingdom as spiritually newborn babes, maturing in God’s grace over time. Just like physical newborn babies don’t come into the world fully developed and knowing all right from wrong, neither do we in a spiritual sense. We may even go through the spiritual equivalent of the terrible twos and teenage angst, but we don’t stay there indefinitely:

“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” [Heb 6:1 ESV]

Note, too, that our sanctification, our becoming more like Christ, is His work as well:

“You shall sanctify [the priest], for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.” [Lev 21:8 ESV]

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [1Th 5:23 ESV]

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed–a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” [Rom 1:16-17 NIV]

And herein rests my point: people need to hear the full gospel to be saved, the one of which Paul was not ashamed. Note that in the gospel, the righteousness of who is revealed? Man? No, God! We ourselves are not worthy of eternal life, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” [Rom 3:23] It is only those “who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” that are counted worthy. [Rev 7:14]

Do you want to be obedient to God? Do you want to say, “thy will be done?” Then you need to hear the full gospel: that Jesus, who is fully God and became fully man, left His glory in Heaven to live among us and show us “the way, the truth, and the life.” [John 14:6] He is the ONLY way to our Heavenly Father. He not only showed us the way, but He Himself became “the way, the truth, and the life.” He bore our sins when he died on the cross, was buried, and was raised to life on the third day. As Paul states:

“And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation– if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” [Col 1:18-23 NIV]

This is the true gospel, the full gospel. It is not watered down or added to. Repent. Turn from your sin and your unbelief. Put your faith in Jesus alone. Then we are born again to a new and living hope:

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” [Tit 3:4-6 NIV]

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” [1Pe 1:3-5 NIV]

“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.'” [Jhn 3:6-7 NIV]

Note Jesus says you must be born again? Remember our definition of obey? To act according to what you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority. Jesus is speaking. Here is an opportunity to obey Him:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” [Jhn 3:36 ESV] Amen.

Photo by Pamela D. McAdams via Adobe Stock