God's Will sermon 1 of 5 7/10/11
Sermon Series on “God’s Will”
Sermon 1 of 5
7/10/2011
September 11, 1991 was a day that shook America. I remember that day well. I was attending a class at Seminary. The news shook the entire seminary, both students and teachers. We gathered together in groups with our professors who were all experienced pastors to try to answer the question Why?, so that we might be able to find out what was the will of God in this terrible tragedy?
I came to quickly realize through those conversations that for the most part we just do not know the will of God. While there are many reasons why we don’t; the most glaring reason is that we just have not gotten past our preconceived thinking about God’s will to understand what God’s will is.
Ever since that terrible day, as time permitted, I have been studying God’s Word so that I might be able to better understand his will. Three years ago I finished the study and presented it to the congregation in the form of a 5 part sermon series.
This spring I started a Bible study class on the book of Job. In Job we discovered that Job thought he knew but really did not know God’s will in his life. And because of that he did not have the peace of trusting in God; both in good times and those terrible times when Job lost everything important to him.
By the second week of the Bible study I could see that it would be a great help if I were to present the sermons series again. So, I went back to the original study and fine tuned it, so you will able to better understand what God has told us his will.
Each sermon builds on the sermon before, so I would urge you to be sure and be here every Sunday for the next four weeks. If, for some reason you cannot attend, the sermons, both the written and recorded sermon will be posted on the Saint John web site each week.
If all the bad things that happen in this world were not enough to question God’s will all you need to do is look at the Old Testament where we hear God tell the people of Israel that they are to level entire cities, sprinkle salt in the fields, so they are ruined, hamstring horses so they cannot be ridden, enslave people whose land they take in war, and yes, even kill babies. What type of God does these things? Is he the God of love that we all follow? What is God’s will in all those terrible events recorded in the Old Testament?
Long before I started seminary I heard a pastor who was the most loving pastor that I know say to the grief-stricken mother of a son who just died unexpectedly, “God gives and God takes.” In other words it was the will of God that her son died. I thought the woman was going to come out of her chair and whack him. She was angry at God, for how could a loving God who died for her and her son take him away from her? It just did not make sense. How could she worship a God that did that to her son, her only son? Or another woman who said to me after her young son died unexpectedly “God needed him more than I did.” While that may comfort her for a while in time she got so angry at God that she cannot bring herself to trust him anymore. The will of God to her was a terrible thing.
That is why we need to know the will of God, at least the best we sinful self-centered people can. I would put forth to you that not only is a person’s faith affected by their understanding or lack of understanding of the will of God, but their whole outlook on life is affected.
This is what I mean. Each one of you has your own understanding of the will of God. Even though you might have not taken the time to really think through the topic you still have a particular understanding concerning the will of God.
Some get very upset at even the thought of questioning God’s will. Others see God as a powerful ruler in the sky who is in complete control of all things of their life. What happens to them is God’s will whether it is good or bad. Their life is like a game piece on a chess board that is being moved around by the grand master.
Still others believe God’s will is not to be involved in the of people at all. He came to earth. He died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. And because of that when you die you know you will be in heaven, but other than that, God’s will is pretty much out of the picture. We are totally responsible for the good and bad in our lives.
Then there are those who might think of God’s will like I did before I completed my study of God’s will. I gave credit for all the good stuff in life as being God’s will while saying that the bad stuff was not his will. Those who think that way might say, if something good comes out of a bad event that God’s will was done, but for the most part, God gets credit for the good and Satan gets credit for the bad.
I don’t know how each of you see God’s will in your life, but do you see the problem? Not knowing God’s will means that you are easily tossed to and fro between life’s tragedies and life’s good times, all because of not knowing what God’s will is.
We need to know, at least as much as we can, because every Sunday, and I am sure for most of you, every day of the week, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s will, will be done.
Being a Lutheran pastor I follow a particular pattern of study concerning the things of God. I first look up and study every passage in the Bible that would give me some insight into God’s will.
After that I study the Lutheran Confessions to see what they say about God’s will. In Luther’s Large Catechism in his explanation of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer he wrote that we should pray, “Dear Father, your will be done and not the will of the devil or of our enemies, nor of those who would persecute and suppress your holy Word or prevent your kingdom from coming; and grant that we may bear patiently and overcome whatever we must suffer on its account, so that our poor flesh may not yield or fall away through weakness or sloth.”
I hope you have noticed that in that explanation he did not address what the will of God is. He only addressed how we are to accept God’s will. It is unusual, but you actually get a better idea of God’s will in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, as it is presented in Luther’s small Catechism which does not go into as much detail as the Large Catechism where Luther states “That when we pray ‘Thy Kingdom come’ we are praying that the will of God is to bring his kingdom to this earth; the coming of the kingdom being when people are brought to faith and then the final coming of the kingdom at the end of time.”
Now that explanation tells us what the end result is of the will of God, but does not tell the whole story of the working of God’s will. In the end; through a though study of God’s Word and with the help of some Lutheran theologians who long ago have gone to their glory I have come to the conclusion that the only way to understand God’s will is to break it down into three wills. That does not mean they are three separate wills, but only one will. Think of them like the trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit separate but one.
Each week I will cover one of the three wills that form the will of God. The last sermon will put what I have said all together into one will of God.
The first will of God is what is called the intentional will of God, that is, God’s original intent for his creation when he looked at everything he made and said it was good.
The next week we will look at what is called the circumstantial will of God. This will of God comes into effect when Adam and Eve sinned, bringing condemnation on all people.
Last, we will look at is called the ultimate will of God which will bring us back to the intentional will of God, for his ultimate will and intentional will cannot be defeated by anyone or anything.
Once you have a better understanding of the intentional, the circumstantial, and the ultimate will of God which make up the will of God you will be better able to discern the will of God in your life, which will lead to a strengthening of your faith, so that you can have peace living your life in his holy will. That is my goal and I hope you will join me every Sunday as we learn more about our Triune God and his perfect will. Amen
Sermon 1 of 5
7/10/2011
September 11, 1991 was a day that shook America. I remember that day well. I was attending a class at Seminary. The news shook the entire seminary, both students and teachers. We gathered together in groups with our professors who were all experienced pastors to try to answer the question Why?, so that we might be able to find out what was the will of God in this terrible tragedy?
I came to quickly realize through those conversations that for the most part we just do not know the will of God. While there are many reasons why we don’t; the most glaring reason is that we just have not gotten past our preconceived thinking about God’s will to understand what God’s will is.
Ever since that terrible day, as time permitted, I have been studying God’s Word so that I might be able to better understand his will. Three years ago I finished the study and presented it to the congregation in the form of a 5 part sermon series.
This spring I started a Bible study class on the book of Job. In Job we discovered that Job thought he knew but really did not know God’s will in his life. And because of that he did not have the peace of trusting in God; both in good times and those terrible times when Job lost everything important to him.
By the second week of the Bible study I could see that it would be a great help if I were to present the sermons series again. So, I went back to the original study and fine tuned it, so you will able to better understand what God has told us his will.
Each sermon builds on the sermon before, so I would urge you to be sure and be here every Sunday for the next four weeks. If, for some reason you cannot attend, the sermons, both the written and recorded sermon will be posted on the Saint John web site each week.
If all the bad things that happen in this world were not enough to question God’s will all you need to do is look at the Old Testament where we hear God tell the people of Israel that they are to level entire cities, sprinkle salt in the fields, so they are ruined, hamstring horses so they cannot be ridden, enslave people whose land they take in war, and yes, even kill babies. What type of God does these things? Is he the God of love that we all follow? What is God’s will in all those terrible events recorded in the Old Testament?
Long before I started seminary I heard a pastor who was the most loving pastor that I know say to the grief-stricken mother of a son who just died unexpectedly, “God gives and God takes.” In other words it was the will of God that her son died. I thought the woman was going to come out of her chair and whack him. She was angry at God, for how could a loving God who died for her and her son take him away from her? It just did not make sense. How could she worship a God that did that to her son, her only son? Or another woman who said to me after her young son died unexpectedly “God needed him more than I did.” While that may comfort her for a while in time she got so angry at God that she cannot bring herself to trust him anymore. The will of God to her was a terrible thing.
That is why we need to know the will of God, at least the best we sinful self-centered people can. I would put forth to you that not only is a person’s faith affected by their understanding or lack of understanding of the will of God, but their whole outlook on life is affected.
This is what I mean. Each one of you has your own understanding of the will of God. Even though you might have not taken the time to really think through the topic you still have a particular understanding concerning the will of God.
Some get very upset at even the thought of questioning God’s will. Others see God as a powerful ruler in the sky who is in complete control of all things of their life. What happens to them is God’s will whether it is good or bad. Their life is like a game piece on a chess board that is being moved around by the grand master.
Still others believe God’s will is not to be involved in the of people at all. He came to earth. He died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. And because of that when you die you know you will be in heaven, but other than that, God’s will is pretty much out of the picture. We are totally responsible for the good and bad in our lives.
Then there are those who might think of God’s will like I did before I completed my study of God’s will. I gave credit for all the good stuff in life as being God’s will while saying that the bad stuff was not his will. Those who think that way might say, if something good comes out of a bad event that God’s will was done, but for the most part, God gets credit for the good and Satan gets credit for the bad.
I don’t know how each of you see God’s will in your life, but do you see the problem? Not knowing God’s will means that you are easily tossed to and fro between life’s tragedies and life’s good times, all because of not knowing what God’s will is.
We need to know, at least as much as we can, because every Sunday, and I am sure for most of you, every day of the week, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s will, will be done.
Being a Lutheran pastor I follow a particular pattern of study concerning the things of God. I first look up and study every passage in the Bible that would give me some insight into God’s will.
After that I study the Lutheran Confessions to see what they say about God’s will. In Luther’s Large Catechism in his explanation of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer he wrote that we should pray, “Dear Father, your will be done and not the will of the devil or of our enemies, nor of those who would persecute and suppress your holy Word or prevent your kingdom from coming; and grant that we may bear patiently and overcome whatever we must suffer on its account, so that our poor flesh may not yield or fall away through weakness or sloth.”
I hope you have noticed that in that explanation he did not address what the will of God is. He only addressed how we are to accept God’s will. It is unusual, but you actually get a better idea of God’s will in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, as it is presented in Luther’s small Catechism which does not go into as much detail as the Large Catechism where Luther states “That when we pray ‘Thy Kingdom come’ we are praying that the will of God is to bring his kingdom to this earth; the coming of the kingdom being when people are brought to faith and then the final coming of the kingdom at the end of time.”
Now that explanation tells us what the end result is of the will of God, but does not tell the whole story of the working of God’s will. In the end; through a though study of God’s Word and with the help of some Lutheran theologians who long ago have gone to their glory I have come to the conclusion that the only way to understand God’s will is to break it down into three wills. That does not mean they are three separate wills, but only one will. Think of them like the trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit separate but one.
Each week I will cover one of the three wills that form the will of God. The last sermon will put what I have said all together into one will of God.
The first will of God is what is called the intentional will of God, that is, God’s original intent for his creation when he looked at everything he made and said it was good.
The next week we will look at what is called the circumstantial will of God. This will of God comes into effect when Adam and Eve sinned, bringing condemnation on all people.
Last, we will look at is called the ultimate will of God which will bring us back to the intentional will of God, for his ultimate will and intentional will cannot be defeated by anyone or anything.
Once you have a better understanding of the intentional, the circumstantial, and the ultimate will of God which make up the will of God you will be better able to discern the will of God in your life, which will lead to a strengthening of your faith, so that you can have peace living your life in his holy will. That is my goal and I hope you will join me every Sunday as we learn more about our Triune God and his perfect will. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 10:57 AM
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