Will

John 6:21 NIV

Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

What Are You Willing To Do?

When I was in college I attended a mini conference on prayer.  The speaker was not particularly charismatic and he didn’t fascinate us with his stories.  In fact his method of presentation was much like a lecture and all of us had little booklets that we used for note taking.  The auditorium was filled with college students though, all wanting to know more about praying.  At the conclusion of the seminars, we were challenged by the speaker to make a commitment to an hour of praying a day.  That was of course a stupendous challenge!  He laid out for us a methodology for praying through an hour using a wheel diagram.  As I looked at the parts of the wheel, I could not find any one of the sections that I could in good faith say needed to be eliminated to try to whittle down the time from an hour to something more manageable for me.  It was of course ludicrous for me to take an hour of my time each day to pray given my college workload.  Yet something happened to me that evening that changed the dynamic of my evaluation of the challenge.  Christ met with me and I could not deny His presence.  It was Him, not the speaker who called for me to rewrite my priorities and begin praying an hour each day.  Billy Graham could not have convinced me to make such a profound and grave commitment.  Only our Lord Himself could “talk me into it” and He did but not with His finely conceived arguments, rather He came up to my will and addressed it there.

We each have a Will and it is not some separate part of our personality; not a segment of who we are like we see with the spirit and the body and even to some degree with the soul.  It is you in totality deciding what you will do, the ruling force over your actions.  You cannot give your will to someone else any more than your body belongs to another person.  You may let people tell you what to do and you might use your body for the purposes of others but it always is your body, your spirit is always your spirit.  No one else can borrow it or live in it.  It belongs to you.  The question is never whose will is it; it is what you, your will has decided.  Your will is you choosing how to act at any given moment.  The will is a most precious and critical gift you possess and many fail to realize how valuable their will is.

Solomon, the ancient king of Israel is a classic example of how the Will can be corrupted by the lack of a clear devotion to anything.  Just as his reign began, Solomon had a momentous encounter with the Lord in which God famously asked him what he wanted as a gift.  Solomon acknowledged how difficult it would be to rightly govern the people of the kingdom and so he called for the Lord to “…give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.  For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" (1 Kings 3:9 NIV )  This request was an act of Solomon’s will and it certainly was not in keeping with how most people would respond if given the options God provided.  God graciously granted Solomon’s request and made him the wisest person on earth.  Later Solomon, in keeping with the mandate his father gave him, built the Temple to the Lord and it was lavishly constructed.  Again God met with him, this time following the dedication of the Temple to the worship of YHWH.  "As for you, if you walk before me as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.'  But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.” (2 Chronicles 7:17-20 NIV)

The Lord laid out for Solomon clearly the terms of a covenant with him.  God would establish Solomon’s rule as a lasting dynasty if Solomon kept the Commandments and lived with faithful commitment to the Lord as his only God.  However, if he didn’t, the Lord would eventually wreck Israel and destroy the Temple that was built.  This was of course simple enough and Solomon certainly understood the ramifications of the Lord’s agreement with him.  Yet Solomon never settled this matter fully in his heart.  His Will wavered between loyalty to God and rebellion against Him.  Solomon, in opposition to the clear commands the Lord gave his kings, made himself extravagantly rich, married thousands of women, married women who were not Jewish and most egregiously of all, he joined with his wives in their worship of idols which we all know is in actuality much more than bowing before a dumb rock or statue, it is in fact a pledging of loyalty to demons and the Satanic realm.

Solomon’s Will made decisions and led to specific actions.  His Will built a Temple to God.  His Will also built altars to demons.  By his Will he wrote the Proverbs which have inspired billions in their life with God.  His Will drove him to greed, selfishness and lust.  By the determination of his will, Solomon destroyed his relationship with God and joined forces with Satan in the corruption of his kingdom.  Solomon decided to do all this not because he was forced but because His will was not thoroughly loyal to God.  In the end, Solomon died a miserable, bitter and angry man who gave up the joy God had for him because his Will stubbornly refused to be joined with the God who met him at the Temple.

To show the contrast between Solomon’s Will and the Will of others in the Bible, let me point out the surprising actions of a man who had been possessed by demons.  When Jesus met him, this fellow was wild and violent and uncontrollable, not even chains could hold him.  The Lord drove the demons out of him and in his right mind, he had a simple wish.  The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying,  "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8:38-39 NIV)  Rather than argue with Christ over this “rejection” or angrily pout that he was turned away, the man’s will determined a new course of action.  He told everyone he could what Jesus had done with him.  It did not matter to him what others thought of his message, the man who had been healed by Jesus turned his will toward what Christ wanted and we can only imagine what happiness it brought him.

The same could be said of Mary who had a jar full of expensive perfume, worth a year’s wages and generously poured it on Jesus’ feet and used her own hair to clean them.  When questioned about the action, Jesus retorted, "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "[It was intended] that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.  You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." (John 12:7-8 NIV)  The point we have to make here is that it was the Will of Mary that decided how she would act at this gathering.  With Jesus present, she decided to be extravagant in her love for Him.  She didn’t have to use up all the perfume or any of it on Jesus’ feet.  But her will, the ruling force over her actions decided to do it.

We see this in Paul also.  Raging against Christianity and using his authority as a Jewish leader to have Christians imprisoned and executed, Paul literally met Jesus on the road as he was traveling with companions and the force of that interaction with Christ changed the way Paul saw things.  He immediately joined the Christian Church and became its most important missionary and teacher.  He was not brainwashed or talked into giving up his life of murder and hatred.  Paul’s Will decided, once he met Jesus, to act differently.  It is the same for each of us.  None of us become Christian because we are convinced we had been wrong.  No argument seizes your will or overthrows it and forces it to capitulate to Christ.  Only when Jesus breaks through in the supernatural way He does and enters your inner world, goes where your Will is and meets you, then are your free to be Christian.  He must meet you, He must come to you and then and only then can your Will truly change its course and you become Christian.

It is wrong for us to think our goal as a church, as Christian people is to talk others into following Christ.  It is not.  Our goal is for each of us to introduce others to Jesus.  He must meet them if any good is to come of their lives.  We cannot force anyone to change.  It is your Will that must decide to do something differently and follow Jesus whole­-heartedly.  The same is true of me and of each person around the world.  You decide in your Will if you will love others, be kind and generous, forgive and worship Christ devotedly.  Your Will is the great power that holds you back from the peace of God that passes all understanding and it is the force that opens the door so that the life of Christ can fill you with all the joy a soul could ever want.   

Choice

Proverbs 8:10 NIV

Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,

Is The Choice Yours?

When I was twelve or so, I was hanging out at my friend’s house when he suddenly went inside and brought me something to see.   I was not psychologically prepared for what I was about to encounter; no one had gone over with me such a time as this and I reacted reflexively rather than thoughtfully.  He had a pornographic magazine in his hand that he had pulled out of his father’s closet.  I had never seen pornography before; never encountered it, never in my life had to decide if I was going to look at pornography.  I didn’t know what the long term ramifications would be if I leafed through it with my friend.  It was of course a moral choice for me long before I understood the concept of moral choices.  I believed in God, was already a born again Christian, had been baptized and taught the Ten Commandments and the basic stories of the Bible.  Pornography was new to me though.  I liked girls, noticed them, was attracted to them and already had picked out several I wanted to like me.  Pornography though was several steps beyond my previous moral choices and I was the one who had to decide if I would look or not.

Life is filled with choices.  All living creatures have choice…plants and single cell organisms and bugs make mechanical choices.  They set their roots down here or there, move into this section of the water or not, leave the ant hill or stay and build the tunnels.  These choices though are mechanical; there is no thought given to them.  Squirrels and crows also make choices but their choices are instinctual, perhaps they think about what they choose but it is not highly organized thought, not strategic.  Dolphins and chimpanzees are able to make choices and think more about what they decide than crows certainly.  They show signs of loyalty and care in their choices sometimes but how much of what they decide is based on values of right and wrong we cannot say.  Can any animal choose to rebel against God or reject His will for it; it doesn’t seem so.  The Bible though tells us who certainly can choose for or against God; who has the ability to say “yes” or “no” to Him.

Our discussion today is not centered on all choices but one kind of choice—the moral choice. Let us make clear what a moral choice is.  A moral choice is the decision to agree or disagree with God in what you do.  Because God determines what is right or wrong and we don’t; it does not matter what our opinion is about something; the moral choice is built on how we respond to God and what He says to do or not do.  Some moral choices are easy to comprehend…do I commit adultery or not, do I steal from my brother or not, do I beat up the guy who took my parking space or not.  Other moral decisions take work to get at them.  We have to study the Bible carefully to get at them.  Do I have an abortion or not?  Do I party with my friends at a bar or not?  What sorts of movies should I watch? 

We all make moral choices, perhaps daily or even hourly but why is that so?  It is because God has made us free to make moral choices.  Consider the moral choice God gave the Israelites as they began their new life in the Promised Land.  "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15 NIV) Not only do natural beings make moral choices because of God’s freedom granted to them, so also do supernatural beings such as Satan.  Satan has freedom to obey God or not as seen in the ancient book of Genesis.  Satan enticed Eve to disobey God and after Adam and Eve did make the moral choice to eat the forbidden fruit, God punished Satan for that moral choice of disobeying Him.  Of course Adam and Eve also were punished and for the first time in human history, sin became a part of the existence of mankind.  What was Satan’s first moral choice?  We do not know but we are told about the one involving mankind.  Satan was given freedom by God to support Him with regard to Adam and Eve’s moral development or rebel against Him and of course He rebelled.

If God were not morally free to choose right and wrong, then the universe would be run by a mechanical engine bound by limitations such as a computer has.  God however is free and therefore His decisions are real decisions He makes.  So why did He choose to make Satan morally free?  Why make people morally free?  What is the good in that if evil has a way into the universe through that freedom?  Now we must examine this question honestly and with care.

Consider our Lord’s options.  He could live forever within the Trinity with never another being in existence.  Clearly His love moved Him away from that option.  He could create other beings who were not morally free, who were mechanical in regard to morality.  They could only do what God said to do but then they would never have fellowship with Him in the same way those who are morally free can.  There are certain parts of a relationship that are not possible if you are not morally free.  You cannot have faith if you are not morally free.  You cannot hope without moral freedom.  And you cannot love if you are not morally free.  To hope, you must be able to choose not to hope.  It is the same with faith.  To have faith, you must be free not to have faith.  Most importantly, to love, you have to be able to not love.

Let’s examine this matter of love.  Love can be mimicked mechanically.  A creature licks your hand because that is what that sort of creature does.  Another creature can wag its tail when it sees you because that is the mechanical response.  We can trick ourselves into believing it is love because it looks like love and we feel love toward that creature but we know it isn’t love it has toward us.  Perhaps we even like that sort of thing more than the risk of real love but we have chosen something much less than love.  We have gone for a mechanical licking creature rather someone who chooses to love us.  Imagine a woman with a man only because he is rich and provides her family a house.  She may kiss him and hug him and write him love letters but she does it so that he will continue to provide for her.  We would never call that sort of relationship love because it is mechanical…it is forced, either by greed or need.  Love is a freely chosen response to another and must be so for it to be love.

God makes us morally free because that is the only way He can enter into a love relationship with us.  And here is the risk.  If we are free to love, then we are free to hate.  We are free to manipulate and free to ignore, disrespect and mistreat.  We are like the prodigal son, free to reject the one who loves us and again like him, free to come back to him in humility and a new sense of appreciation of what we have in that one we love.  If we are morally free, then we can do anything we wish to holiness, love and goodness.  We can hate, destroy, use, ruin, cheat, lie or kill ourselves.  We can do these things because we are morally free.  Here is the rub though.  Many are angry that God would create a universe where evil is possible.  They wonder what sort of cruelty would lead to a creation where corruption can take a seat alongside goodness, love and kindness!

Consider this.  Because God is love, he is free to love at a level that goes beyond our ability to fathom.  He took all our evil, all the sin we have produced through our moral freedom and absorbed it into Himself.   To understand God in this, we must listen carefully to the first part of John 3: 16.  For God so loved the world…  Not only did God love us so much that He gave us moral freedom, He loved us enough to take all the evil our moral freedom has produced and accepted the punishment Himself for it.  He took in Himself the damage our unholy choices have caused and died with them so that we would not have to live with the consequences of our moral choices.  God’s choice was to let us be free to make moral choices of good and evil. Even supernatural beings like Satan he gave moral freedom to choose good or evil.   Because we all have chosen evil and unholy living, God also chose, out of His moral freedom to take upon Himself the consequences of our sin…to die for them.

Some are angry with God for letting us choose evil.  They are mad that others can sin freely, can hurt people and wreck their lives.  That is the cost of being free to make moral choices.  Imagine though someone being mad at her mom for giving her a ride to school or being mad at his son for making him breakfast or being upset with his wife for being loyal to him and declaring her love for him.  How terrible would that person be?  Our God is so full of love for us that He gives us the freedom to act hatefully and bitterly and despise the freedom He has given us and then take all that hatred and bitterness into Himself and suffer the pain it has caused.   More than that, He chooses when we let Him, to join with us and make us completely new.  He gives us His life joined with our life and we gain His will to be holy and His strength to love completely.  What is the grace of God?  It is God’s choice to suffer the consequences of our moral choices, to give us the freedom to make those choices and then give Himself to us to be a part of us without, eventually, any of the damage our moral choices have caused us.

There is an old story of a little dog that loved a lion so much that after barking at the lion to stop heading into a hunter’s trap, he went after the lion that ignored his warning and jumped in front of the arrow that was intended for the lion.  As the dog lay dying, the lion roared at the little dog, complaining that the dog didn’t stop his headlong dash into the hunter’s trap.  He cursed the dog and complained about his wickedness for letting the hunter shoot his arrow.  The little dog smiled and simply whispered with his last breath, “I love you lion.”  How would that lion greet the little dog if three days later, the dog came back to life?  Would he hate him for his sacrifice?  Would he walk away from the dog’s warm embrace?  Would he realize what a great treasure that dog’s love is?  Would he forever be loyal to such a friend as that?  For God so loved the world…

Forgetting Where We Are

We have bought into the proposition that everything is natural and random, originating in the mindlessness of circumstance.  Even as far back as the exodus out of Egypt the presence and activity of God was lost on the exiting Israelites.  When Pharaoh and his army of charioteers barreled down upon the encamped Israelites, the half-crazed Hebrews lost their minds over the perceived danger they faced.  It was as if they had forgotten altogether the plagues upon the livestock and the deadly hailstorm and the deaths of the firstborn; all of which did not touch them but ripped into the Egyptians.  If the Israelites could be oblivious to the hand of God back then given their experience with His work, it is not unreasonable that this same sociological circumstance would be present today.  The mob reacts to every bit and parcel of circumstance as bad luck, good fortune or the natural outcome of hard work and ingenuity.  The Holy Spirit alone brings to light the absolute and constant interplay of God within our world.  If Israel could stare at the photograph of God's intervention and see nothing, how likely is it that we will see it.  We must rely upon Holy Spirit to part the curtain as it were and make it so we  recognize all the ways our Lord is working in and among us.  Only then can we rest peacefully as we do our work and make our plans and evaluate our situation.  Nothing frustrates our joy more than the blackened goggles we stretch across our eyes given us by Satan to block out our discernment of what is really happening.  Satan cannot inhibit our view of God; he can only encourage us to block Him out of our sight.  You must choose to see God right there with you when you drop the dinner on the floor or your stocks tumble off the table.  You can see Him if you will look with Holy Spirit fixing your mind on what it should be noticing.  The worst of your day is never lost in circumstance...it is just as surrounded by angels as the shepherds who watched their sheep at night.  At no point have you been overtaken by your troubles and hardships...you are in just as good a place as Israel standing before the Red Sea.

"...It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"   Exodus 14:12NIV