Welcome to another edition of the Weekend Sermon. Thank you for reading the sermon this week. It is my prayer that all of you are doing well.
I have been very sick this past week. I've had to go into the doctor for three breathing treatments. The first course of antibiotics did not work, and now I am on a different medicine. I also have to take prednisone for several days. I've missed several days of work, although I've been trying to go on and off as able. I am going in today. I'm afraid that I'm going to get fired because I've been sick so much. I feel sorry for people who have kids and have to worry about losing their jobs. Please pray that I will get better soon. Thank you.
Today is the day that my Dad passed away seven years ago. I can hardly believe that seven years have passed since he has been gone. This is also the month one year ago that one of my best friends died. Overall, I'm not having the best of weeks. I've been asking the Lord to help me through, and I'm making it. Thanks be to God.
In prayer, I would ask that you pray for the people in California who are worried about the situation with the dam breaking. Please pray that there is no further problem with this. Also, please pray for those facing disease and pain this day. Pray that the Lord will be with them in a special way.
Continue to pray for peace in the world. Pray especially for Syria as more and more horrors come to light in this country. Pray for refugees and those trying to find a place of safety.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for Senegal and Thailand. Pray that people in these two nations will hear and respond to the message of Jesus' love.
For the past several weeks, we have been in a series of messages on the parables of Jesus. As I mentioned when we started the series, I would step away from the series every now and then to bring a message on a different topic. That is what I have decided to do today.
There are four words in the Bible that I find often hard to pray and often hard to accept. However, these four words are what I believe are the foundation of truly following the Lord Jesus. These four hard words are recorded in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:10. They are the words, "Thy will be done."
I think that these four words are hard for a couple of different reasons. First of all, to say, "Thy will be done," it means that we have to put aside what we want to do and be willing to do whatever it is that the Lord Jesus wants us to do.
Oftentimes, we think that we know what is best for our lives. We have it all planned out. and we want the Lord to make things happen so that our way goes right. I think that if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you know that this isn't the way it always works out.
Praying, "Thy will be done" is saying to the Lord that we want Him to guide each path of our lives. We are putting Him in charge of all that happens to us, and we are not inserting our will into the mix. We are truly letting Jesus be the Lord of our lives. Some people just having trouble giving up control.
Saying "Thy will be done" is also hard because it means that we have to accept what comes to us in life as being the will of the Lord in some way. When we ask that the Lord's will be done in our lives, we have to believe that the Lord is working in His own time and way to accomplish what He has for us. Often this looks very different than what we thought it would.
I'll just give a couple examples from my own life. From an early age, I knew in my heart that the Lord had called me to be a minister of the Gospel. The way that this looked in my mind was that I would have a nice church and congregation as a pastor. Well, things didn't happen that way. After I graduated from Bible college, the fundamentalist church of my youth didn't want me as a minister. On top of that, a missions organization I wanted to be a part of didn't want me to come because they said that my health wasn't good enough.
However, the Lord had another way that He wanted to work out His will for my life. The Lord allowed me to start writing, and I developed a writing ministry. I started writing devotional material, and some of those articles have reached around the world. One article I wrote has been translated into multiple languages. Six years ago next week, the Lord provided the opportunity to start this blog and bring these messages. I am thankful to the Lord for these opportunities.
This isn't the way I thought that things would work out, but the Lord was all the time working.
Another example is what happened with my dog Toby. I can hardly believe that I am writing this now, but there was a time when I didn't like corgi dogs. However, I found myself at a time when I was extremely depressed about many things, and I was not in good health. I really needed a friend. I needed some unconditional love and acceptance from somewhere. I just happened upon an ad in the paper where someone didn't want their corgi dog anymore. So, I decided to just go and see him. It changed my whole life. I found the best friend that I ever had, and I know it was Jesus who brought us together.
Right now, I am wondering how on earth it can be the Lord's will for me to be in the situation that I am in. I am in a hard time right now. I am just going to be upfront. I can't stand my job. It makes me nervous, and right now as I am sitting here typing this sermon I am upset by the fact that I have to go into work in a couple of hours.
My health is as bad now as when I was a young man having to go to the Mayo Clinic. I do not want to live where I live. Even though they've been gone seven years I keep thinking that I'm going to open the door when I get home from work and my Mom will be watching TV and my Dad will be sitting in his chair reading the newspaper.
Each day, I pray those words, "Thy will be done" and I am believing that even in these hard times that I don't understand that the Lord is working things out in His way. I have to have faith and keep trusting in His goodness and His love.
Jesus had to face something in life that He didn't want to, but He said, "Not my will, but thine be done." Jesus didn't want to face the pain and humiliation of the cross if He didn't have to. However, He put Himself in the Father's will. Because of this, Jesus has received the name above all names, and one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
I don't know what difficulties and problems you may be facing right now. I have no way of knowing. I do know that all of us have problems in life. What I do encourage you do to is to pray each day that the Lord's will will be done in your life. Believe that Jesus is working out His will, and accept by God's grace what His will is for you.
Sometimes, you will look back and see that the Lord had a better way than we could have ever asked or imagined. Sometimes, we just have to keep moving on by faith. Always, we trust in the love of Jesus and look to Him as our example.
Now, I have something that I believe that Lord Jesus is showing me to be His will. As you know, I finished a book a few months ago about the smallest books of the Bible. It was my will to send this book out to publishers with the intent of it being published as an ebook. However, I believe that the Lord has shown me that this is not what I am to do. So, starting in a couple of weeks when I am feeling just a bit better, I will be posting on this blog one chapter per week of the book I've written. It will be free of charge. That way, anyone who would like to read it can, and they won't be hindered by their ability to pay. So, I will mention more about this in a couple of weeks.
I am diligently praying for the Lord's will to be done in my life, and I trust that in the coming days, the Lord will open up pathways for me that I have never dreamed of.
Next week, Lord willing, we will resume our parables of Jesus series. I will have to post the verse on Tuesday this week as the library will be closed on Monday for President's Day. I do not even understand why this is a holiday, but that is another matter. I will probably starting posting more than one verse. On some verse days I just have several that come to mind that I want to post. I won't be publishing a poem this week, but there should be a review this week. I just didn't feel up to it last week. May God bless you all. Amen.
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