Why should God’s will to be done?

Good Friday 2019

Jesus Christ was in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal where He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).¹ Here Jesus is facing the moment that He had been prophesying about concerning His own suffering, death, and resurrection on the third day (Luke 9:20; 18:31-33). The metaphorical “cup” that He was about to drink represented deeply painful experiences of betrayal, abandonment, slander, injustice, whipping and crucifixion. Despite the natural aversion that kind of suffering, Jesus forsakes every impulse to abandon His calling, and submits to the will of the Father.

This humble act of Jesus becomes an example for all of us to follow, as He taught us to pray “your will be done” (Matt. 6:10). Hank Hanegraaff says that praying for God’s will to be done is “first and foremost, recognition of the sovereignty of God.”² This universe belongs to God, everything within the universe are under the providence of God, and all creatures, humans in particular, are the welcomed guests. Hank goes on to say that praying for God’s will to be done involves “daily recognition that our wills must be submitted to his will”³ and “daily recognition that God will not spare us from trial and tribulation but rather use the fiery furnace to purge impurities from our lives.”⁴

I find the very idea of submitting to the will of the Father to be one of the most monumental challenges of the Christian life. My every impulse is to have things my way. I daydream about how life could be better for me if only this or that would happen. I shun pain and seek the path of least resistance. When it comes to the God thing, I ok with it, as long as I get a spirituality that works for me. However, I also get just how foolish that is. The Apostle James tells us:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin (Jas. 4:13-17).

My way is never really the best way. God has a way for me, and that way leads to life and life more abundantly. This life begins with Jesus, and His example of submitting to God’s will in particular. Not only does Jesus provide the example, it is through His death, burial, and resurrection where I can be transformed into the glorious creature I was intended be. This transformation not from my own strength but the supernatural transformative workings of the Triune God of the universe.

Submitting to God calls for humility, and humility is the first step towards greatness. The Apostle Paul writes,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:5-11).

It is in the humble act of submitting to the will of the Father that allows Jesus to fulfill His ultimate vocation — the very purpose for His incarnation and earthly ministry. The crucifixion, death and resurrection form the apex of all redemptive history from the creation to the final consummation. It is the decisive victory against all the powers of darkness of the universe. It is the quintessential demonstration of the way God will ultimately vindicate those who suffer for the sake of righteousness. Most of all, it is the one perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Jesus dies on behalf of sinners to make right their relationship with God. He is the Lamb of God who takes away our sin. He gives His own life for the sinner, and the sinner is made righteous by the blood of the Lamb.

C.S. Lewis puts it best: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”⁵ May God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

— WGN

Notes:

1. All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
2. Hank Hanegraaff, The Prayer of Jesus: Secrets to Real Intimacy with God (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 2001), 47
3. Ibid. 48.
4. Ibid. 49.
5. C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: Harper Collins, 1946), 75.