Experiencing God: Doing God's Will

"Experiencing God:  Doing God's Will"
Genesis 12:1; Romans 4:18  (Msg)

It’s important to get a vision of the total canvas upon which this story of the call of Abraham is painted.  That picture includes the whole of the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  The title of this painting could be “Not Your Will But Mine.”  On that canvas there is painted the story of the first man and woman eating fruit from the one tree they weren’t supposed to.

There is painted the story of the first murder of a human being:  brother against brother.

There is painted the story of the complete waywardness of the world and how God wiped it all away in a catastrophic flood, except Noah and his floating zoo.

There is painted the strange story of the world’s people building a tower in an attempt to reach the heavens and to God.

As you can see, this larger painting, with all its sub-sections is covered with the broad strokes of a mistrustful, distant, and resistant people.  When God created the world, you’ll remember he brought creation out of chaos.  But in these first chapters of Genesis, it seems the chaos has a way of continually leaking back in to God’s world.

Upon this canvas of “Not Your Will But Mine,” there is one more piece of the picture: the call of Abraham.  The contrasts of his story with all the other stories that come before are stark and full of hope.  Where people were mistrustful, Abraham puts his uncertain future in God’s hands.  Where people were distant, Abraham walked with God.  Where people were resistant and willful, Abraham responded without excuses or hesitation, in effect saying, “Thy Will Be Done.”

This is all the more remarkable when we consider what the challenge of God meant for Abraham.  It meant abandoning his land.  Without land he would have become a non-person in the eyes of his neighbors.  It meant the renunciation of his past and all that he had built up to this point in his life:  especially those things that brought him comfort, security and stability.  It meant relinquishing any dreams he might have had about himself, his family, and their future.  It meant allowing those dreams to be reshaped and refashioned by a God who had never spoken to him before.

Above all, it meant saying to this unknown God, “Thy will be done.”

David Lloyd George, once Prime Minister of England, said, “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is needed.  You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

Here’s an illustration of that statement.  During an international chess competition several years ago, a man named Frank Marshall made what has since been called the most amazing move on a chessboard.  It was a crucial game.  He was matched against one of the Russian masters.  Marshall’s queen was under serious attack.  There were several ways Marshall could escape the attack.  Everyone watching thought that Marshall would move his queen to safety, since she is one of the most important pieces on the board.

Deep in thought, Marshall used all the time available to him to consider his options.  He picked up the queen, paused, and placed her down on the most illogical square of all:  a square from which the queen could be captured by any one of three opposing pieces.

Marshall had sacrificed his queen.  It was an unthinkable move in chess, made only when she would have been trapped and no other option was open.  But that wasn’t the case with Marshall.  He could have moved her to safety.  The spectators were dismayed and Marshall’s opponent was overjoyed.

But slowly the Russian, and the onlookers, realized that Marshall had actually made a brilliant move.  It became clear that no matter how the queen was taken, his opponent would soon be in a losing position.  Seeing the inevitable defeat, the Russian gave up and the game went to Marshall.

For Abraham to venture out with God to some unknown land would have been like sacrificing the queen.  No one would understand why he was doing it.  They would think he was crazy, because all he had to do was to say, “No,” to God:  “Not your will but mine.”  Then Abraham could retreat into the safety of his existing life.  When Abraham said, “Yes,” to God, it was as if he were setting himself up for an apparently losing and crazy move.

Abraham had a lot of explaining to do.  Maybe a man back then didn’t have to explain himself.  He just said, and everyone else had to obey.  It doesn’t mean there weren’t behind-his-back conversations going on about Abraham and the Voice he heard.  Wives, extended family, servants.  All wondering why Abraham was bending his will to the Voice’s will.

That’s what it comes down to.  Will.  The will of God.  Or your own will.  The whole opening of our scriptures is a continual story of people following their own will.  And then the awful repercussions and consequences of people’s willfulness.  You’d think if it was the Bible, it would open with happy stories, and people’s blissful walk with God, allowing their will to be shaped by his, skipping hand in hand through the elysium fields.  But that’s hardly the case, is it?  Instead it’s mayhem that not even Allstate Insurance could protect you from.  Murder.  Bold-faced arrogance.

The one common thread through it all is living within or outside of the will of God.  This thread is fundamental to who we are as human beings.  And who we are as God’s people.

Blackaby does a great job, in the chapter you will be reading for this week, describing how we come at this question of God’s will all wrong.  Mostly what we do is come at this question of God’s will from an individualistic, American cultural direction.  We want to know what God’s will for my life is.  Because, it is, after all, all about us.  In our self-centered way, we want to know what God’s got up his sleeve just for me that no one else gets in on.  We look at God’s will as if it’s this one special thing, that God has reserved just for me.

Coming at God’s will from this direction, the focus is totally inward at ourselves, our lives, our self-centered perspective.  We ask the wrong question, which is, “What is God’s will for MY life?”  Instead, the proper question is, “What is God’s will?”  See how that question puts the focus squarely on God, and what God is up to?  God’s will may have something to do with us, or maybe nothing to do with us individually.  But we can’t abide the thought of that.  To think that I may or may not fit in with the will of God goes against our individualistic and self-centered cultural way of thinking.  Our grand view of ourselves.

There are a couple of things that go wrong very fast if you start with yourself in trying to understand God’s will.  Both of these went wrong in the early chapters of Genesis to varying degrees.

The first way you will go wrong if you start with yourself in trying to understand God’s will is that you will be hindered by fear.  Fear of what you may or may not be asked to do.  Fear that you won’t measure up.  Fear that you will fail God.

That’s why I like very much Paul’s assessment of Abraham in Romans 4, that was read a few moments ago.  I love how The Message puts it:

When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.  (Romans 4:18)

Notice a couple of things that Paul perceptively picks up on about Abraham.  The opening part of the verse says, “When everything was hopeless…”  But hopeless according to whom?  To Abraham!  Because Abraham was only thinking about himself and his fears that were overwhelming him.  It certainly wasn’t hopeless from God’s perspective.

But Abraham “believed” through that hopelessness by shifting his focus away from himself and his fear, and centered that focus on God and what God can do.  That made all the difference.  Focusing on yourself in trying to understand the will of God will only get you wrapped up in fear and hopelessness.  You have to shift that focus solely on God.

Secondly, if we come at God’s will trying to assess what we think we are equipped to handle or do, we will do very little.  We always, ALWAYS, assess ourselves, and our abilities downward.  We do that so we won’t have to do very much.  We come at trying to understand God’s will based on our appraisal of our gifts, talents, abilities, whatever, and say, basically to God, “This is what I’ve got; I know it isn’t very much; so, what’s your will for me based on my meager resources.”

Can you get an inkling of how God must be so frustrated hearing that time after time, from person after person.  It’s what God heard from Moses.  “I can’t go down there and talk to Pharaoh.  Public speaking isn’t one of my gifts.  How about Aaron?  I’m just not equipped to do what you’re asking.  Ask me to do something within the wheelhouse of my meager abilities.  OK, God?”

God’s reply is always, “I don’t care about your abilities or your personal assessment of those abilities.  In fact, I’m going to throw them all out.  There.  Now you have none.  You are totally stripped of any and all abilities.  So now, in order to do my will, I’m going to give you the abilities you’ll need to accomplish that will.  They are my abilities, and my abilities are limitless.  So now you can accomplish that which I will you to do.

Uh, Oh.  Now we’re in a fix.  Because if we are to understand and do the will of God, it has nothing to do with us.  It has to do with God, with God’s will, and God’s equipping us fully and totally for that will.  Do you see the difference?

Can you do that, Jakob?  You, literally, have no idea what you will be facing.  You have heard God’s will to follow God to Bolivia.  You may have been given a bare outline by the Mennonite Central Committee, of what you might be doing.  But I’m here to tell you, based on my 35 years of experience with the church and with God, that may not be it at all.  Are you willing to let God strip you of your abilities so that God can fill you with his abilities that will fit perfectly with what following God’s will means in that place?

That’s why the Abraham story is so pivotal in our understanding of the will of God, and how we will fit in with God’s will.  Abraham didn’t start with himself.  Nor did he demand the full traveling guide book of following God’s will.  He just went.  God was Abraham’s guidebook, because Abraham put the focus on God, not himself.  And that was enough for Abraham.  It has to be enough for you Jakob.  It has to be enough for us all, to simply let God lead and equip, as we seek to understand and do God’s will.