Renovating Our Will
Renovate

Below is an automated transcript of this message

Lord, we thank you for the 31 years of Your faithfulness. Lord, it’s Your faithfulness that brought us this far. Lord, we thank You for the calling You have on our church to plant churches in eastern North Carolina, that led us to change our name. Lord, we’re a church that recognizes the need to reach our Judea. Lord, we want to pray for those churches that we partner with in our city to share the gospel in Wilson County and in eastern North Carolina. Today, we want to lift up a partner church just down the street from us; it’s Christ Temple of Praise. Their pastor is pastor M.K. Smith, a dear friend of ours and a brother. We pray for their services today and for their impact on the city. Lord, we pray, most of all, that You would be Lord and that we’re not trying to build our kingdom. We’re praying that Your kingdom will come. Lord, that’s how we’re praying today. Be with us as we hear Your word. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Last week, I began praying for different churches and different pastors. I had people come up to me in the lobby and ask, ‘Is that church okay? Is that pastor okay?’ Yes, as far as I know they’re okay. I was just letting you know that we’re praying for other churches that are gospel centered in our area. If you hear me praying for other churches, it’s because we’re thankful for their partnership. We’re praying for M.K. Smith today and for their services. I just had breakfast with him and some other pastors last Thursday. It’s good to lift one another up.

There’s over 80,000 people who live in our county. It’s going to take, not just our church, but every Bible believing, gospel preaching church in order to make sure every man, woman and child in our county have multiple opportunities, repeated opportunities, to see, hear and respond to the gospel. That’s our heart. We’re in part four of this series, “Renovate.” Today, we’re talking about “Renovation of the Will.” Renovating our will and the heart is the seat of the will. When the bible talks about the heart, it’s a metaphor for the will–the place where we make decisions. The place where we make choices.

Our theme verse for this series is found in Proverbs 4:23 (ESV) “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” That’s where we make decisions. That’s where we make decisions about what we’re going to do, whether we’re going to follow our way or God’s way. Today, we want to “unpack” what it looks like to surrender our will to God’s will.

Dallas Willard, in his book, “Renovation of the Heart,” writes this. He says, “Single-minded and joyous devotion to God and His will, to what God wants for us—and to service to him and to others because of him—is what the will transformed into Christlikeness looks like.” That’s what God is up to.

If you’re a believer today, what He wants to do in us is, He wants to make you more like Jesus Christ in our character, in our decisions, how we live and the transformed will and the renovated will so that we pray along with the prayer of Jesus, who prayed like this, “Father, not my will, but Yours be done.” That’s how Jesus prayed and that’s the continuous prayer, hopefully, of our lives today that we pray surrendering our will continuously to God’s will.

Have you learned to pray like this? Have you learned to pray as Jesus prayed? Have you taken on that Christ- like focus in your life or do you struggle with knowing and doing God’s will? The observation I’ve made through the years is that Christians rarely struggle with knowing God’s will, but they often struggle with doing God’s will. We know more than we do, and so, I would say today, are you able to obey God’s will? Have you surrendered, not just your heart to his will, but you’ve started making decisions according to His will.

Now, Dr. Willard talks about the effect of sin that it has on our hearts. He calls it the “splintered will,” that the heart has become divided. Even as believers, we still struggle with this divided heart that was corrupted by sin. It’s divided in who it wants to please, because the old nature before we came to Christ says, ‘I want it my way,’ like the old hamburger commercial, Have it your way. That’s how we want it; that’s really the attitude of sin. That’s the heart of sin. The heart of sin is this – I want to do it my way rather than God’s way. I will do it.

I’ve often said this; one of the earliest complete sentences that I remember our children saying is, ‘I do it myself. I do it myself.’ That’s really the hardest sin; we’re all born with it – a desire to do life on our own, to be the God of our own lives rather than allowing God to be the Lord of our lives. As a result, is the “splintered will,” which says, ‘How can I do it? My way ends up being manipulative, deceptive and it wants its way. It will do almost anything to get its way because it has exalted itself to the throne and removed God from the throne.’

What would it look like to put Christ on the throne? What would it look like to say, ‘I want Your will Lord, because I’m convinced that Your will for me is better than my will. Your way is better than my way.’ What would it take? That’s what we’re talking about today.

We’ll be looking at a well-known passage in the book of Romans, chapter 12 . It is just a couple of verses, but there’s so much here. The apostle Paul appealed to the believers in Rome and challenged them to give their whole lives to Jesus, holding nothing back. To surrender their whole life to Him so that He might transform and renovate their hearts and their wills to Him.

I believe, today, that if you give your whole lives to Jesus, God is waiting for you to do that. If you will say, ‘God, I want Your will for my life.’ It begins like that, doesn’t it? Maybe you’re not really sure what you’re signing up for when you do that, but as long as “you’re willing to be willing,” God will work with that. He’ll tell you more about what it looks like to follow Him.

Let’s look at the text today and see how that works for us, how we can submit our will to God’s will for renovation. Romans 12:1-2 (ESV) 1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is God’s word. Amen.

We’re talking about the renovation of our will, allowing God to change, transform and renew our will. Here’s the first way to do this; here’s the first step.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WILL TO GOD FOR RENOVATION:

1. Surrender every area of your life to God.

In many ways, this is the most difficult step, because we do it by faith and we say, ‘I’ve tried my way, I don’t want my way anymore, but I’m still kind of scared. I’m afraid to turn it all over to God. I’m afraid He’ll take something from me that I really love. I don’t know; I’m scared.’ Maybe that’s where you are today; we have certain favorite things, certain favorite loves, certain addictions and we just don’t want to let go of them. It begins with surrender, “waving the white flag” and saying, ‘Lord, I surrender my will to Yours.’ You begin with a “willingness to be willing.’ Maybe, as you encounter His will, You’ll struggle from time to time as you learn that He wants what’s best for you, to surrender every area of your life.

Here’s how the apostle Paul talks. He says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” In other words, put your whole life on the altar. He uses this particular language–I’m begging you to recognize what Christ has done for you by the mercies of God. What is he talking about?

Notice the word, “therefore,” in verse one. Remember what we always ask–What’s it there for? You should always ask, ‘What’s it there for?’ because it’s like an “equal sign” in the text that says whatever preceded now equals this outcome or result.

For eleven chapters, the apostle Paul has taught us that we can be made right with God, that the righteousness of God has been revealed through Jesus Christ. If we will receive the gospel by the mercies of God, we can be made right with God, not through any effort of our own, but because, “for grace, you have been saved through faith.” For eleven chapters, he’s been working that out. He’s basically saying this – since Jesus gave all that He has for you, He laid down His body for you, it’s only reasonable that you should lay down your whole life for Him. That’s the “therefore;” that’s the equation. For eleven chapters, he told us what Jesus did; now, what’s your response?

He starts in chapter 12, verse one. He moves from the pronouncement of the gospel to the application or the prescription for the gospel. He is beginning to say, ‘Now, since Jesus did all of this, our calling is to do the same; to lay our lives down,not to die, because He took our death, but to be a living sacrifice.’ As the old preacher said, “That’s a problem because if it’s a living sacrifice, it has a tendency to crawl off the altar.” So, we have to continuously surrender. You might surrender today and you get up the next morning and you have to surrender anew because “the living sacrifice starts trying to crawl off the altar.” It wants its own way again.

Paul calls us to this and he says, “Present your bodies;” offering your bodies. God is waiting for you to do that. Who would say, ‘God here I am. All that I have is Yours. All that I am and all of my identity is Yours. All that I have, all that I love is Yours. I now make You my supreme love. I’m going to love You with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength. Lord, it’s not much, but it’s me. You have me.’ Have you done that? That’s the first step, and in many ways, it’s the hardest step. It’s to say, ‘I surrender my way to your way.’ Have you done that? Paul says that I appeal to you to do it. I beg you to do it. It’s the thing that is expected for what Jesus did for us. It makes you holy and acceptable to God.

Now, you might say, ‘I don’t have a very holy life.’ You’re probably thinking of perfection, you’re probably thinking of sinlessness. Certainly, holiness might have that aspect of meaning, but here, I think it has more the aspect that you would find in the old Tabernacle teachings of the Old Testament, where the Lord would say, ‘Okay, this is the garment that Aaron wears. I want you to set it apart and make it holy. I want you to consecrate it and make it holy. Aaron can’t wear this outside of the Tabernacle because it’s set apart for special use; it’s holy. These implements that I want you to use in temple worship, you can’t use them at home. You can only use them in the temple, they’re set apart for my worship.’

The word, “holy,” has that idea here, that if you offer your life to God, you’ve now been set apart, consecrated for special purpose, no longer to be used by the world, but to be useful in the kingdom of heaven. Holiness has more of the idea here of being “set apart,” “consecrated” unto God so that our hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouth and a heart that beats within us are all now aimed at serving God’s purpose and not our own.

I surrender control, as if you had some thought that you were in control. How many here have figured out that you’re not in control? Have you figured it out? Some of us are still trying to “grab the steering wheel.” You have to surrender. If I surrender, what will happen? That’s the challenge to, by faith, trust that the Lord’s way is better than your way; to surrender control and allow Him to set your life apart unto Him. Give yourself completely to God. You have a new purpose – to bring glory to God.

Look what Paul says in Romans 6:12-13 (NLT) 12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.We live for the glory of God, to reflect His glory. We’ve been set apart for special use.

I don’t remember my father ever spanking me. He died when I was only eight years old. He had lung cancer and it spread to his whole body and he died. It was a terrible thing to behold. It took a while. It marked our whole family. I’m the oldest of four children. He was my hero. My daddy was my hero. I’ll tell you this–I don’t remember him ever spanking me. I’m sure he did. I just don’t remember it. But I’ll tell you what I do remember. I remember those moments where I had done something wrong and he would take me into my bedroom. I had twin beds in my bedroom, one was for me and one was from my baby brother. He would have me sit on one twin bed and he’d sit on the other. He’d lean forward, put one hand on my knee and say, “Look me in the eyes, son; be a man.” I’m six years old. He wants me to be a man. Well, that’s how it starts. That’s how a father teaches his son to be a man. I looked him in the eyes; that’s hard, because I knew I’d sinned. He says to me, “When you talk back to your mother like that, you disrespect your mother. You dishonor her and you dishonor me. Worse than that son, you dishonor the Father. I’m disappointed in you.” Man,I would cry like a baby. I would boo hoo because my father was disappointed in me. Now, my mother could chase me all over the house and discipline me and I would not cry. Dr. Dobson wrote this book years ago called, “The Strong Willed Child.” I should have had my picture in that book. I would not cry, but if my dad would look me in the eye like that and say, “I’m disappointed in you, son,” I would weep because I did not want to displease my father.

Today, I want to say this to you. I’m not perfect and I make mistakes. If you’ll be honest with yourself, so do you. My Father loves me. My Father in heaven loves me and I do not want to disappoint Him. I do not want to displease Him. When I do it, it hurts my heart and I want to repent quickly. That’s what it looks like to grow in Christ. You learn to repent quickly . You learn to keep a “short list,” so you don’t have to confess all morning and the next day. You can just keep your confessions short; as soon as you feel that you’re out of alignment, as soon as the warning sign starts flashing in the dash of life’s vehicle, you say, ‘I need to pull over and get right with the Lord.’

This is the consecrated life. In the progression towards identification with God’s will, it begins with surrender. You first have to say “no” to your will in order to say “yes” to God’s will. We must recognize the supremacy, the sovereignty of God’s will, that His way is better. We begin this by saying no to our own will.

Have you ever done this? I would recommend it. Just lay down on your face; maybe you can try it right here, but I don’t know. People are watching; that’ll weird you out probably. Lay down on your face, spread out your arms and say, ‘God, here’s my life. Here’s my body. Here’s my hands to do what You’d have them do. Here’s my feet to go where You’d have me go. My mouth to speak, my eyes to see, my ears to hear — all that I have, I consecrate, I set apart my life under You.

I think it was D. L. Moody that when he was a young man, he heard another preacher saying, ‘The world has yet to see a man who would totally be set apart for God.’ He said on that day, “I determined to be that man.” What would it look like to be that man or woman, today, who says, ‘Sign me up, Lord. I surrender my will to You. This is the first and perhaps the most challenging step towards Christ’s likeness of the will of the heart.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WILL TO GOD FOR RENOVATION:

2. Offer your mind to God for transformation.

We’ve talked about, in our previous weeks in this sermon series, that the heart is ”the seat of the will.” There are these aspects of our lives that inform the heart. Two weeks ago, we talked about the aspect of the mind, which is the thinking, the imagery, the memories, the thought life information of the mind. It informs the heart either positively or negatively to choose God’s will. Then, the aspect of the mind is called the feelings, the emotions that inform the heart. Last week, we kept repeating that “feelings are great servants, but terrible masters.” You should be controlled by the Holy Spirit, so that your will is in alignment with God’s will. Feelings can be the thing that follow rather than inform and rule. We talked about that last week.

This week, we’re trying to get at, Is my heart in alignment with God’s heart? Is my will and alignment with God’s will? It begins by offering your thoughts and your feelings to God, so that you say, “God, I need transformation.” Let’s look at the text and see what I’m talking about.

He gives two commands. One is a negative command and one is a positive command; two imperatives. The first, in verse two, is “Do not be conformed to this world.” That’s the negative command. Stop doing something. Stop doing what? Being conformed to the world. What does that mean to “conform?” It is an outward pressure, an external source of pressure that’s pressing in on the heart, pressing in on the will in the mind. When we say the world, we mean the world system, the culture or the way the world thinks,feels and acts.

How does the world think, feel and act? It wants its own way, so that every person, as it says in the book of Judges, “becomes a law unto themselves.” They want to do their own thing and the more freedom they have, the more enslavement they find themselves under. This is the world system, but we, as believers, are no longer to allow our thought life, our feelings , our will to be pressed into this conformed world.

The word, “conformed,” in the Greek is where we get the word “schematic;” it’s pressed into a form, like our way of living is somehow poured into this form that hardens. We don’t live like that anymore. Unfortunately, the mark of the American church is that it really doesn’t look any different than the world. We say that we follow Jesus, but we don’t surrender our hearts to Him. Since we didn’t surrender, then we don’t experience transformation and so our spiritual formation is still conforming to the way the world thinks.

Paul says to stop this, but he doesn’t just say stop this, because that would just leave us adrift. Instead, he tells us to be transformed. The Greek word underneath the word, “transformed,” is where we get the word “metamorphosis;” from the inside out. This is real change. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This is great, this is awesome, this is new . This new way we’ve surrendered the old will. We no longer want to conform to that old way of deciding things based on conforming to the world’s way of thinking, but now, we live according to this transformed will, this transformed mind.

It’s been said that “character is who you are when no one is watching.” Now, we’re on our best behavior this morning. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot we said to the kids, ‘Okay, get the smiles on. Shut up and stop whining. Now, we’re at church.’ We get our Christian smiles on, let’s all pretend, but that takes a lot of energy to pretend. Who are you when you’re alone? Who are you when you’re driving in your car by yourself and somebody cuts you off or they don’t pull out immediately when the light turns green? That’s your real character; that’s who you are. Your spouse knows who you really are and so do your kids. They know who you really are. “Character is who you really are when no one is watching,” but we need help, so in this surrendering of our will to God, the will is splintered. It keeps on, it keeps on being divided. It wants to go back. It wants its own way again. Now, we’ve surrendered and we keep on surrendering. Now, we’re asking for transformation so that the will becomes content with God’s will.

Now, it’s not just “willing to be willing,” but it’s willing now. What’s happened is the will has surrendered in other places and found out that God’s way is better. The will is learning that God’s way is actually better, so you start trusting more. Now, you’re moving towards contentment , but we need help.

Here’s what Paul says about it in Philippians 2:12-13 (ESV) 12 “Therefore, my beloved,as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” For His good will so that God is at work in you. He’s renewing your will. He’s doing a renovation. Cooperate, offering yourself to Him. Cooperate, work out what He’s working in, so that this is a human/divine cooperation. We can’t experience this new will without the Holy Spirit’s work inside of us. We won’t experience it fully if we kick against it, so, there’s a cooperation, a yieldedness that’s taking place because grace is opposed to earning but it’s not opposed to effort. You can’t earn this grace, but after you’ve received this grace, work out what He’s working in.

This would be great if gym’s offered this; people would line up. Everybody would be going to the gym with the advertisement out front that says, “For $50, you can buy a muscle. On sale, you can buy two muscles for $75 (because you don’t want to have one muscle here and one droopy muscle over there. You’d be like one of those crawdads with one big claw and one little claw.)’ But, nobody offers that; you don’t go to the gym to buy a muscle. You go to the gym to tone your muscles and work them out because God already gave you muscles. You just need to work them out.

Now, let’s move that from the physical realm to the spiritual realm. The Holy Spirit abides in you as a believer, but you must surrender your will to Him. Get out of the driver’s seat. Now that you’ve surrendered the wil, l stop trying to grab the steering wheel every time He takes a turn that scares you or that you’re not sure you’re gonna like. Learn to be content and work out what He’s working in.

How does that look? You begin to talk to Him about it. ‘Lord, You know that I’m afraid to take this step or to head in this direction. Lord, you know. Would You tell me what’s causing me to feel a lack of peace? Why do I feel anxious right now?’ It might be just because you’ve been suffering under the illusion that you’re in control and now you’re losing control and it’s terrifying you. Once you get to the place where you have the transformed mind, you’re in the place where it’s all good. All things are good. All things will be good, because it’s by faith.

I look back at how far God has brought me over these past 31 years. We started this church with seven people in my living room. I was in my early 30’s. I had no idea what I was doing. If I would have known how much it was going to cost me for us to be here, I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to do it, but I, just by faith, said, “Lord, do you want me to quit my job and go to seminary and plant a church?” The answer kept being yes. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t feel qualified, but my answer was a simple “yes” and a simple surrender.

It’s kind of like this – He cares more about your availability than He does your ability. He can give you that ability, but He allows you to make yourself available. Will you be available to God? If you’ll say “yes” and offer your mind and yourself to Him, then work out what He’s working in. He’s at work in you. Stop fighting. Give in. The transformed mind has learned contentment in this.

Paul, again, in the book of Philippians writes this. he says, Philippians 4:11-13 (NLT) 11 “I have learned how to be content with whateverI have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” He’s learned and grown as he’s learned to trust God. He’s grown to be content because he knows how to live on almost nothing and with everything. He has learned the secret of living in every situation, “whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.” You can see the divine cooperation he’s learned because God has taken him through seasons of plenty and seasons of lack. He’s learned that God was there with him through the whole thing.

When we first planted the church, I was so on fire for God.I said, God, ‘I don’t care if You take everything from me. I’m going to do what you said.’ I was full of emotion and fire. Then, I went for fourteen months with zero income. The bank started sending people over to my house to ask me if they could have my house back. Apparently , the bank wants it back if you don’t make payments for six months. Did you know that? I found that out. It wasn’t just something somebody told me in a contract. They actually start calling you; they want the house back. I still live in the same house. God miraculously moved, but I really believe God wanted to move me from “book knowledge” to “experiential knowledge” so that I could be content in all things and that I could learn to trust Him. Because He brought me through that season of lack, then I learned to give Him all the things in the world and seasons of plenty. I learned that, by faith, I could look back and then, by hope, I could look into the future even though I haven’t seen it yet and I’m able to say that everything’s going to be okay. All things are good, all things will be good because I belong to Jesus.

Gary, how do you do that? I don’t know, but He does. Psalms 37:25 says this, “I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I notseen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread.” God will take care of his people and so, by faith, I take hold by hope. I look forward and then love, joy and peace pours out.

Dr Willard writes this in his book, “Beyond surrender is abandonment, and beyond abandonment is contentment with God’s will. Beyond surrender and contentment lies, intelligent, energetic participation in accomplishing God’s will in our world. We are no longer Spectators were caught up in a vivid and eternal drama.” This is where the spiritual disciplines are helpful, by the way.

Do you know what spiritual disciplines are? Remember when I was talking about “working out what He works in?” There’s certain physical disciplines that you have to work out. You have to do things. There are spiritual disciplines to exercise, this yieldedness of the will, spiritual habits, if you will. By the way, you’re doing one right now. You got out of the bed this morning. You didn’t want to; at least I didn’t. My bed felt good this morning; it was thirty degrees outside. I had the temperature turned down in the house just right. My alarm clock went off early because I get up and I have certain spirit spiritual disciplines. I read the bible and pray before I get out of the house. It took me a while to learn that; it took me some bad days where I got off track. If I get up earlier, it takes a discipline. The Lord doesn’t make me just magically feel all happy when I wake up. My wife is happy in the morning; He gave her that gift. Opposites attract. Her name is Robin; she wakes up like a little bird, “tweet, tweet tweet,” with a smile on her face every morning. We have been married for 44 years. I’m the opposite. I wake up with a growl, then I go get some Jesus and coffee. I get in the Word and I discipline myself. It takes effort, but I’m “working out what He’s working in.” Then I say, ‘God I know I’m not supposed to feel like this. This feeling is from my body and from my temperament and my old nature. I ”put it to death.” Fill me with joy. I do feel a little bursitis in my right shoulder, but my shoulder still works. I got new knees so they don’t hurt as badly as they used to. Lord, just help me. I know that You live within me now. I’m going to do my reading today and I’m going to pray.’ Those are spiritual disciplines. I’m “working out what He’s working in now.” Nothing will happen if He’s not working. In fact, He’s doing the heavy lifting, but I’m cooperating. I’m not kicking against it. These are spiritual disciplines.

On the back of the card that’s on your connection card in your bulletin, there’s a box you could check – Life on Life Discipleship. We teach five spiritual disciplines in our Life on Life discipleship process. We teach the discipline of holiness; we teach the discipline of prayer and fasting, bible study and others. There are many. I’ve listed a few. Spiritual disciplines are like exercises of the Spirit. They don’t produce grace. Grace is a gift, but grace at work in us allows us to “work out what he’s working in.” If you “work it out,” more pours in. You begin to grow and become more like Jesus. It’s like practicing before a game.

Last week in my small group,we went through the traits of the fruit of the Spirit. I asked, ‘Of these– love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness…which one do we need to pray for you about this week?’ Everybody dropped their eyes; don’t call on me. I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to call on everybody, so you might as well think of something. Invariably, just about everybody in the room said something. Patience was a common one. Then we talked about it. Be careful about praying for that one. If you pray for more patience, guess what? You get more opportunities to practice patience. What you want to do is practice patience before you’re in an impatient situation . Then, you begin to ask for it.

You don’t get in the middle of the game and say, ‘I need to practice.’ No, it’s too late. You’re in the game. So you practice, in solitude and silence before the Lord in prayer and reading God’s word. You ask, ‘Lord, this is an area that I need patience. Help me today to practice patience whenever this happens. This thing is in front of me today and I know it normally triggers impatience, so now, I’m going to work it out in advance.’ The spiritual disciplines help you practice before you encounter the opposition to your love, your joy and your peace. We’re “working out what He’s working in.”

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WILL TO GOD FOR RENOVATION:

3. Willingly and joyfully follow God’s will.

Surrender, abandon your will to His will, which leads to contentment and a transformation of the mind and the will. Finally, we want to come to the place where we willfully and joyfully follow God’s will.

We are in the latter part of verse two. He says, “…by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Those are all favorable aspects of God’s will that, as you’ve been tested and as you’ve been following God’s will, you’ve concluded, you know His will is good. It’s “gooder” than my will. It’s acceptable. In fact, I’ve got to the place where it’s acceptable to me. I approve of it over my own choices.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant that you’ve never eaten at before? A family in our church took us to a restaurant a week or so ago; they invited Robin and I to go (I’m trying to think of the name of this restaurant right now.) It’s the place where you “dip stuff.” What’s the name of that restaurant? Yes, “The Melting Pot.” They bring out these pots and all of these different things and you cook your own food at the table on these fork- like things. I didn’t know what to order. They brought the menu out and so I said to the couple, “Order for us.” They ordered a lot of stuff. Turns out, I liked all of it. Pretty much the only problem I had with that place was waiting for the next thing to cook, so then I started learning how to cook as I ate and had food cooking the whole time. What I found out was this couple had been there before and it was just better to ask them to order for us because they knew more about it than we did.

You see, that’s God. He’s already been where you’re headed. He lives outside of time. He knows the future, He knows what’s already going to happen. He makes better choices. He’s sovereign. He’s God and you’re not and so, you learn to live joyfully in this, knowing that all things will be well if I’ll just follow Him, if I’ll just order what He’s got set on the table for me. It’ll be the best for me. I want to follow His perfect will. It’s perfect for me. It’s what He wants for me.

How did Jesus pray? He prayed like this, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” He didn’t pray my kingdom come, my will be done. No. He said, ‘Father, Your kingdom come. Your will be done.’

How do you see God’s kingdom? You must make sure that Christ is king, so make Christ king of your life. Make him Lord of your life. God, you take the steering wheel. Lord Jesus, Your will be done. Your kingdom come.

Where’s the the kingdom of heaven? The kingdom of heaven is wherever Christ is king. Is He king at your house? Is the kingdom of God coming to your house? Is Christ king? Is He the Lord; is He in charge, so when you pray the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray, you pray like this, ‘I think You are really God. You are holy; hallowed be Your name. I lift You high above all things. Your kingdom come in me. Let’s start right here; get on the throne of my heart right now. Your will be done in me.’ Then, you let it work out in your marriage. If you’re single, in the way you treat the opposite sex and the way that you think about them. “Lord, Your kingdom come, Your will be done” at work in my workplace, at school where I attend school, in my family, in my neighborhood… You begin to pray it out, I want your will in all those places, and know that someday that prayer will be answered.

We’re participants, we are citizens of the kingdom and we pray for its fulfillment. God is looking for people that will pray like that. People whose hearts are in alignment with His.

Remember, what God said about David? We see this in the book of Acts, Acts 13:22 (ESV) …’I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Is that your heart? Are you holding something back? I’ve got this one thing; I can’t let go. I can’t surrender. Find your contentment in His will and then find yourself a joyful participant in His will. So, not only have you accepted His will, you want it and you joyfully want to carry out His will.

Jesus met with a woman at the well; she was a Samaritan woman. She’d been in a relationship with five different men and the fifth man she was just living with. She wasn’t married to him. Jesus points this out to her and she said, “I can see that You’re a prophet.”He said to her, “I’ll tell you the truth. If you’d asked Me for water, I would have given you living water…” She asked Him for that water so that she wouldn’t have to come out to this well anymore. Jesus began to reveal Himself to her. He said that He was the Christ. He revealed to her who He was. She took off running towards the city of Sychar, a Samaritan town, saying, “Come see the Man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” The whole city turned out. Meanwhile, the disciples were coming back from Sychar to get some food. They had left Jesus alone there at the well. They were bringing lunch back and they saw that woman he was talking to, which was very odd because it was a Samaritan and it was a woman. Jesus is Jewish, so He was breaking these kinds of rules of the culture. The disciples said , ‘Lord aren’t you hungry, don’t You don’t want to get something to eat? We went and got You some food.” Here’s what Jesus says in John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” That’s His food; His food is to do God’s will, to accomplish His purpose. He says, ‘I have food that you know not of. Talking to that woman, that’s why I came here, I came here for her. Oh, she’s a mess, but I’m going to clean her up and make her acceptable to God. She’s already started witnessing. She might be a mess, but it didn’t take her long. She hadn’t talked to anybody in years because of the shame. That’s why she was at the well in the middle of the day; nobody goes to the well in the midday sun, but now she’s wide open, she’s telling everybody about Me. That’s why I came. That’s my food. I live for that.’

This is the committed life . We become energetic participants in the Kingdom of God. Our will has become so in alignment with God’s will and it’s like food to our souls to do what He wants, casting off every part of that “splintered heart,” wanting nothing of it but to have a pure heart, holy given over to God’s will. It’s no longer like giving up. It’s even not like surrender anymore. It’s love. I just don’t want Him to be disappointed in me. I just want Him to be pleased. I want Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master’s happiness. I want to pray like the psalmist prayed, Psalm 40:8 (ESV) “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Your will is in my heart. I delight in doing Your will. This is the transformed, renovated will and heart.

Some years ago, in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, a woman named Lelia Naylor Morris wrote this hymn, “Sweet Will of God:”

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone,
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
“Lord, let in me Thy will be done.”

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

2 I’m tired of sin, footsore and weary,
The darksome path hath dreary grown,
But now a light has ris’n to cheer me;
I find in Thee my Star, my Sun.

3 Thy precious will, O conqu’ring Savior,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul a prisoned bird set free.

4 Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What pow’r from Thee my soul can sever?
The center of God’s will my home.

May that be the prayer of our lips this day. May that be our prayer, so that our hearts are so in alignment with God’s heart that we joyfully and willfully follow Him.

Let’s pray. “Lord Jesus, thank You that you gave Your life for us, and then You ask us to come follow You and to offer our lives wholly to You. To surrender and to be content in You. To joyfully follow You. Lord, I pray for that person today that’s never done that. They have never given their life to You.” Is it you, my friend? Are you seated here in this place? Are you in the room next door listening? Maybe you’re watching online? Right where you are, the Lord is waiting for you to surrender your heart to Him. You can do it in prayer right now. Pray like this, ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I’ve been living my own way, but I repent. I turn aside from my own way and I turn to You. I believe that You died on the cross, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. Make me right with God. I want You as my Lord and Savior.’ If you’re praying this prayer, believing, then He will save you and make you a child of God. Others are here and you’ve done that. You’ve given your life to Jesus, but there’s areas of your life, maybe it’s an area that you have to forgive someone and you haven’t been willing. Maybe you’re exhausted; you’re tired and you’re ready to give up on something that He’s called you to do and you can’t do it. Maybe He’s saying to you now, ‘Trust Me. I’ll give you the strength to complete what I’ve called you to do.’ I don’t know what it is, but you do. The Lord has told you to surrender and find contentment. It will lead to joyful participation in His will. Will you do it? Will you give that to Him, whatever He’s naming to you by His Spirit? We pray all of this now in Jesus’ name. Amen.