The Glory of God's Will

certainly a very great privilege for my husband and me to be here and i want to talk to you this morning about the glory of god's will high in the mountains of north wales in a place called chana mouthway lives a shepherd named john jones with his wife marty and his black and white dog mac i stood one misty summer morning in the window of the farmhouse watching john on horseback herding the sheep with mac a few cows were quietly chewing their cud in a nearby corner corner while perhaps a hundred sheep moved across the dewey meadow toward the pens where they were to be dipped mack a champion scottish collie was in his glory he came from a long line of working dogs and he had sheep in his blood this is what he was made for this was what he had been trained to do and it was a marvelous thing to see him circling to the right circling to the left barking crouching racing along herding a stray sheep nipping at a stubborn one there his eyes always glued to the sheep his ears hiss listening for the tiny metal whistle from his pastor which i couldn't hear marty took me to the pens to watch what john had to do there when all the animals had been shut inside the gates mack toured around outside the pens and took up his position in the dipping trough frantic with expectation waiting for the chance to leap into action again one by one john seized the rams by their curled horns and flung them into the antiseptic they would struggle to try to climb out and mack would snarl and snap at their faces to force them back in just as they were about to climb up the ramp at the far end john caught them by the horns with a wooden implement spun them around forced them under again and held them ears eyes and nose submerged for a few seconds i've had some experiences in my life which have made me feel very sympathetic to those poor rams i couldn't figure out any reason for the reason for the treatment that i was getting from the shepherd and he didn't give me a hint of explanation as i watched the struggling sheep i thought if there was some way to explain but such knowledge is too wonderful for them it is high they cannot attain unto it so far as they could see there was no point whatsoever when the rams had been dipped john rode out again on his horse to herd the ewes which were in a different pasture again i watched with mayor mighty as john and mack went to work again one in charge and the other obedient sometimes t tearing at top speed around the flock mack would jam on four wheeled breaks his eyes blazing but still on the sheep his body tense and quivering but obedient to the command to stop what the shop shepard saw the dog could not see the weak you that lagged behind the one caught in a bush the danger that lay ahead for the flock do the sheep have any idea what's happening i asked mari not a clue she said and how about mac i can't forget marty's answer the dog doesn't understand the pattern only obedience there are those who would call it nothing more than a conditioned reflex or at best blind obedience but in that welsh pastor in the cool of the summer morning i saw two creatures who were in the fullest sense in their glory a man who had given his life to sheep who loved them and loved his dog and a dog whose trust in that man was absolute whose obedience was instant and unconditional and whose very meat and drink was to do the will of his master i delight to do my will was what mack was saying yea thy law is within my heart the glory of god is will for us means absolute trust did max response to john's commands hinge on the dog's approval of the route his master was taking mack didn't know what the ship at shepherd was up to but he knew the shepherd have you and i got a master we can trust do we ask first of all to be allowed to examine and approve the scheme the apostle paul admitted the limitations of his own understanding now we know in part he said now we see through glass darkly but he was absolutely sure of his master he never said i know why this is happening he said i know whom i have believed i am absolutely sure that nothing can separate us from the love of god we start then with the recognition of who god is he is our creator the one whose spoken word called into being the unimaginable thing called space which scientists tell us is curved and the equally unimaginable thing called time which the bible tells us will cease this is the god who dreamed up thought up of you before light existed created you formed you and now calls you by name when the apostle paul was an old man in exile on an island called patmos on account of the word of god and the testimony of jesus he was granted a vision of one like a son of man eyes like a flame of fire voiced like a waterfall face shining like the full strength of the sun and in his hand he held the seven stars old john who had known and loved jesus was overwhelmed he fell at his feet as one dead and then the land the hand that held the seven stars was laid on him and the voice that was like a thundering cataract said fear not i am i am the first and the last i died i am alone alive and i have the keys now write what you see what john saw turned out to be the book of revelation the most abstruse of all the books of the bible full of bowls of wrath and bizarre beasts of lightning and harps and smoke and seas of glass and the rainbows of emeralds the courage it took to put all that down in writing for other people to read came from the vision that john had had of who it was that was asking him to do this it is this same one who asks you and me to do what he wants us to do the god of creation who's got the whole world in his hands the god who in the person of jesus christ for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made man and was crucified those hands that keep a million worlds from spinning into oblivion were nailed motionless to a cross for us that hand that held the stars was laid on us can you trust him two thousand years ago paul said that the jews were looking for miracles the greeks were seeking after wisdom not much to change that has there been people are still looking for instant solutions chasing after astrologers and gurus and therapists and counselors but christianity still has only one story to tell it's an old old story jesus died for you and me trust him carl barth was once asked to sum up in a few words all we had written all he had written in the field of theology this was the sum jesus loves me this i know for the bible tells me so if you can trust that kind of a god what do you see next you do what he tells you you obey this was the second thing i saw when i watched the shepherd and his dog if you know your master you will do his will we identify ourselves with christ or we deny him jesus chose a path and went down it like a thunderbolt when we say as christ did i have set my face like a flint to do his will we are baptized into his death and like the seed which falls into the ground and dies we rise to new life we have shared his death paul wrote to the romans let us rise and live our not our new lives for him put yourselves into god's hands as weapons of good for his own purposes i like that hard clear language put yourself obedience to god is action i can't find anything about feelings in the scriptures that refer to obedience it's an act of the will our wills are ours wrote tennyson to make them ours god gave us this precious gift of freedom of the will so that we would have something to give back to him put yourselves in his hands choose give yourself present your bodies a living sacrifice until you offer up your will you do not know jesus as lord there are many who have made this choice and said the eternal yes to god thy will be done but you are wondering how can you ask how can you know what it is that god wants you to know if you can just figure out what the orders are you are willing to obey them you wish with all your heart that it was as clear to you as the pillar of fire to the children of israel or the little metal whistle to the kali dog the epistle of john puts the lesson in much stronger language he says the man who claims to know god but does not obey his laws is not only a liar but lives in self delusion to will to do god's will involves body mind and spirit not spirit alone bringing the bringing the body under obedience means going to bed at a sensible hour think about that one kids bringing the body under obedience means going to bed at a sensible hour watching your weight cutting out the junk food grooming grooming yourself carefully for the sake of others it means when the alarm goes off your feet hit the floor you have to move you may remember hearing of gladys aylward a remarkable little parlor maid from london who went to china as a missionary she spent seven years there in happy single life before an english couple came to work nearby as she watched them she began to realize that she had missed out something wonderful so she prayed that god would choose a man for her in england and call him and send him straight out to that part of china and have him propose she leaned toward me on the sofa where we were sitting that day her bony little finger pointing into my face she said elizabeth i believe god answers prayer he called him but he never came well it's like a little alarm clock they got the call to duty but you have to put your feet on the floor bringing the mind under obedience means for example doing that reading your professor has assigned the will of god for a student is to study being in college puts you under a set of obligations you must pay your tuition you must go to classes you must write that term paper you don't need to do any praying about whether or not you ought to do these things being a christian points you puts you under certain obligations too you are the salt of the earth the light of the world my witnesses jesus said you don't need to pray about whether this is your job or not but bringing the spirit under obedience entails plenty of praying for understanding and for guidance about the how when and where the bible won't tell whom to marry or what mission field to go to but i believe with all my heart that as you seek honestly to do the things you're sure about god he will show you things you're not sure about we might as well admit that most of our difficulties are not with what we don't understand but with what we do understand in preparation for reading the book god's guidance i read through the whole bible to find out how he guided people in those days i found that in the overwhelming a majority of cases it was not through what we would call supernatural means voices visions angels or miracles but by natural means in the course of every day a sore course of every day and comes com circumstance when a man was simply doing what he was supposed to be doing which happened to be taking care of sheep or fighting a battle perhaps or just mending fishnets if the case happens to be the matter of becoming a missionary you have to believe that god has something to do with your even considering such a career he may call you to your attention preparation that you've already had that you never thought of as being a missionary career you may seek the advice of godly people whose wisdom you need you look at a particular need and you see that you could in fact fill that need the timing is right my times said the psalmist are in thy hands you have certain gifts given to everyone according to his grace for the sake of others circumstances may point the way even your own desires could be sanctified and used for god's purposes paul had a streak of romanticism in him i think when he said that he wanted to preach where christ had not been named why shouldn't god make use of a streak of romanticism study the facts use your head trust the shepherd to show you the path of righteousness remember nobody can steer a car that is parked one week before i graduated from college wheaton college it was i learned that a young man named jim elliott was in love with me well i had been pretty sure for several months that i was in love with him but i kept telling myself that it would be fatuous that he could ever look twice at me he was what we used to call a bto a big time operator and i was a tiny little twi two a teeny weeny operator furthermore he was popular and attractive and i was sure that every little sign that he might be interested in me was only my desperately wishful thinking but no one day he told me he loved me my heart turned over and then sank like a stone when he went on to say that he hadn't the least inkling that god wanted him to marry me oh dear he was going to south america i thought i was going to africa each of us had just been through months of heart searching in an attempt to accept the possibility of life as a single missionary we believed we had reached that point and then wham here we were in love now how do you discern the will of god when your own feelings shout so loudly loudly we prayed the prayer of whittier's hymn breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy bomb let sense be done let flesh retire speak through the earthquake wind and fire o still small voice of calm we prayed amy carmichael's prayer and shall i pray thee change thy will my father until it be according unto mine but no lord no that never shall be rather i pray thee blend my human will with thine and one evening as we talked about what was at stake we agreed that it was really too big for us to answer to handle god's call to the mission field was strong our love was if anything stronger there seemed to be only one thing to do put the whole thing back into the hands that made us the hands that were pierced for love of us and let him do what he wanted with it if he didn't want us together that would be the end of it if he did no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly we had to believe that promise some of you know the end of the story we waited five years then god gave us to each other for two years does this make the will of god even more scary the more the glory of god's will for us also means joy it can't mean anything less from the kind of god we've been talking about he made us for glory and for joy does he ask us to offer up our wills to him so that he can destroy them does he take the desire of our hearts and grind it to a powder be careful of your answer sometimes it seems that he does just that the rams were flung helplessly into the sheep dip by the shepherd that they had trusted god led the people of israel to a place called mara where the water was bitter jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and the disciples were led into a storm john the baptist the faithful servant at the whim of a silly dancing girl and her evil scheming mother had his ch head chopped off five american missionaries attempted to take the gospel to a group of jungle indians who had never heard of christ on the eve of their departure they sang together that great hymn by edith cherry we rest on thee our shield and our defender we go not forth alone against thy foe strong in thy strength safe in thy keeping tender we rest on thee and in thy name we go one of the men was jim elliott my husband by that time who had written in his diary when he was a junior in college father take my life yea my blood if thou wilt and consume it with thine enveloping fire it is not mine to have have it lord pour it out as an oblation for the world could jim have imagined how literally that prayer would be answered months of preparation went into the effort to reach the alca indians of ecuador the five men prayed planned worked dropped gifts from an airplane and believed at last that god was clearly showing them that it was time to go they went and they were all speared to death five men who had put their trust in a god who represents himself as our shield and our defender were speared they were speared to death in the course of their obedience now what does that do to your faith does it demolish it that a faith that disintegrates is a faith that has not rested in god himself you've been believing in something less than ultimate some neat program of how things are supposed to work some happiness all the time variety of religion you have not recognized god as sovereign in the world and in your own life you've forgotten that we're told to give up all right to ourselves lose ourselves for his sake present our bodies as a living sacrifice the word is sacrifice in one of jim's love letters to me and his were very different from most i can assure you he reminded me that if we were the sheep of his fat pastor pastor he would be headed for the altar but that isn't the end of the story the will of god is love and the love of god is not a sentiment in the divine mind it's a purpose for the world it's a sovereign and eternal purpose for every individual life we we follow the one who said my yoke is easy yet his own pathway led straight to the cross if we follow him sooner or later we must incu encounter that cross so how can we say that the will of god leads to joy we can't possibly say it unless we look beyond the cross for the joy that was set before him jesus endured the cross my daughter and i once had tea with corey ten boom as she talked about her own experience and that of my husband jim she took out a piece of embroidery which she held up with the back to us just a jumble of threads that made no sense at all she then repeated for this for us this poem by krant grant colfax tuller my life is but a weaving betwixt my god and me i do not choose the colors he worketh steadily oft times he weaveth sorrow and i and foolish pride forget he sees the upper and i the underside she then turned the piece over and it was a gold crown on a purple background she said the dog doesn't understand the pattern only obedience as george mcdonald put it obedience is but the other side of the creative will obedience is but the other side of the creative will the will of god also means joy because it is redemptive and it transforms it is redemptive for it means joy not only for me as an individual but for the rest of the world as well did it ever occur occur to you that by your being obedient to god you are participating with christ in his death and then in his redemptive work paul told us this we have shared his death he said we are weapons of good for his own purposes your response helps all the rest of us obey god for his sake first of all obey him for your own sake if you lose your life remember he promised you'd find it but obey him to for my sake for the sake of others there's a spiritual principle here the same one that went into operation when jesus went to the cross it is the principle of the corn of wheat the offering up of ourselves our bodies our wills our plans our deepest hearts desire to god is the laying down of our lives for the life of the world this is the mystery of sacrifice there is no calculating where it will end the bitter water the wildness the storm the cross all are transformed to sweetness peace and life out of death god wills to transform loss into gain all shadow into radiance i know he wants to give you beauty for ashes he gives me the oil of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness jim elliott and his four companions believed that the world passes away and the lust thereof but he that willeth the will of god abideth forever in another translation philip's translation says they are part of the permanent and cannot die in jim's own words by giving up what he couldn't keep he gained what he couldn't lose because of corey ten boom's obedience and that of her family through the hideousness of a concentration camp because they looked not at what what's visible but at what is invisible hundreds of thousands have seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ jesus had to go down into death and the corn of wheat had to be buried and abide alone in order to bring forth life the glory of god will mean trust it means the will to do his will and it means joy can you lose certainly you can go ahead and lose your life that's how you will find it my life jesus said for the life of the world what's your life for god bless you

Channel: The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation

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Length: 32min 52sec (1972 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020