Sermon on God’s Will Genesis 50:14-22; Hebrews 10:32-39

January 12, 2003 The Rev. Beth Ernest

The older I get and the more of life I experience, the more I want the world to look like the kingdom of God. I want it to be changed miraculously into a place where love reigns, angry words are no more, and everyone’s life glorifies God. Of course, that doesn’t happen, and I wonder why. Why doesn’t God’s perfect will for my life, for our lives, for our world, just take over, get done, make itself known. Wouldn’t that be easier for God and for us?

Instead, what is happening right now, even as we speak is astounding…

• Our nation gears up for a war many if not most Americans can’t even understand.
• Death comes calling and a loved one dies
• The jobless statistics in our nation rise dramatically, meaning that real people cannot feed their kids or pay their mortgage
• 50% of married couples find themselves in crisis, a long way from the idyllic picture of their wedding days.
• .the newspapers tell stories of abandoned children
• a couple learns they are infertile, while friends have their third or fourth child
• airplanes crash killing all on board
• Slobodan Milosovic is on trial, while other world dictators range freely, continuing their reigns of terror.

Are all these events the will of God? If so, what does that say about God? Does God delight in evil and sorrow? Is God too weak to prevent such things? If these events are not the will of God, how do we know that something is God’s will? Do we simply declare everything that happens in the world must be the will of God, and if we only really understood it, we would see its wisdom and all would be OK? Should we accept even the worst things that happen to us and try to be happy about it because God must have caused it? Can God use everything, even evil and suffering, for his glory?

I’d like to talk about God’s will using a great book that came out just after World War II, The Will of God, by Leslie Weatherhead. Hopefully, some of you have read it. It’s become a Christian classic, written by a British clergyman who delivered a sermon series on this subject.

Weatherhead wisely questions our use of the term, "the will of God." We hear this bandied about as if it always means the same thing. A child dying must be the will of God. An accident must be the will of God. That a person got this job and not that job, so it must be the will of God. That it was raining and not sunshine must be the will of God. That Christ was crucified must be the will of God.

Weatherhead invites us to look at the will of God in three ways:

1. God’s intentional will
2. God’s circumstantial will and
3. God’s ultimate will.

By God’s intentional will, Weatherhead means what God wanted from the get-go, when the world was created. We were created to reflect God’s glory, made in his image. God’s intention is that we should love one another, be obedient, and that life would be good for all his creation. God IS love and his will is love. That is what God intends and has always intended. That is God’s will.

How important it is for us to understand and believe that God intends the very best for us. Since the beginning of creation, God has willed nothing but the best for us, so deep is his love for his creation.

But God also, in his love for us, gave us free will. God did not want people to be puppets, but to love him freely. And so, people disobey. Love may be replaced by hate or apathy. The earth, which is God’s creation, operates by laws of nature; storms, hurricanes, and other natural disasters may disrupt human life, as the citizens of a string of Pacific Islands learned in very literal terms last week. Also, evil exists, and can work its woes. And so, circumstances which put a temporary stop to God’s intentional will for our best, will happen.

When evil or human response or chance events seem to thwart God’s intentional will, Weatherhead points to God’s circumstantial will. Basically, now that circumstances are different, what is the best that can come of it? How will God respond or want us to respond? Say someone did his best at his job, but got laid off anyway? Or a couple miscarried? Or parents divorce? Or you study, but only get a C, not the desired A. Or in another context, the next tribe invades your village, kills your cattle and throws you off your land? (A corporate takeover might be a somewhat pale parallel to that.)

Now we are in the position of having to face circumstances God did not originally intend. Christ also encountered this. Weatherhead explains how God’s intention for Jesus Christ was that people should follow him. Being sent to save us from our sin did not mean he was sent to die. What if everyone, like the citizens of Ninevah, repented and changed their ways? Could Jesus have then avoided the cross? Why not? But we know that did not happen. Jesus arrived to very mixed reviews, especially among the powerful. The sin of this world temporarily had its way with Jesus. And so, Jesus is crucified, willingly accepting death for our sakes. But God responds as God must respond, by turning the tables on evil, sin, and death, and making from Christ’s death a triumph over the grave. The circumstances were different than desired, but the will of God to save his human race was victorious.

Being a pastor, Weatherhead was often asked by people, "Why did such and such happen?" Why this tragedy or that tragedy? Was it God’s will? Take the instance of a child dying. It depends on how we ask the question. If we ask, does God intend for the human race to be mortal creatures, the answer is yes. Has God created some people with the ability to use healing herbs or to create medicines from his creation? Yes. Will we understand those arts better than in the future than we do today (so that today, some people die when years from now they might be saved?) Yes. Does God intend for the body to respond in certain ways, that is, if we are cut we will bleed, or if we don’t get liquids, we will dehydrate? Yes. God created our bodies with such functions. God does not suspend the rules of nature for us, at least, very seldom. So while God created his universe to follow these rules which are a part of the master plan, God is not using them against us. God is not violent, as Weatherhead says, he does not sneak into someone’s home in the night and "put a wad of cotton soaked in cholera germ culture on (a) little girl’s mouth" p. 12. That little girl might be exposed to someone with the disease, and by the laws of nature which pass moisture from one lung to the next, she might be infected and die. Medicine at this point in time might not be able to save her. That is different from saying God caused or willed the death of the little girl.

Given those circumstances, can the family heal? Can they live to glorify God? Eventually, yes, and that is not to at all suggest that life will not be terrible and sad and pretty rotten for some time as the girl and her place in the family is mourned. The circumstantial will of God is that the family will be renewed and healed despite the terrible circumstance they have experienced.

Weatherhead raises another interesting issue that you often hear people say, in fact, you heard it a bit after 9-11. Did you hear anyone say that perhaps the destruction of the towers was God’s will to wake up his people or to cause people to turn to him? Such things are often heard after times of great suffering, "Look how much bravery and valor was shown!" "Suffering brings out the best in people." "That’s how heroes are made!" In Hebrews, we read that early Christians displayed courage and compassion with those who suffered for their faith. When maligned and punished, they cheerfully endured. Hebrews says, "But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved" (10:39). Does this justify the evil or suffering we live through?

Weatherhead heard this from people trying to make sense of the terrible suffering England went through during WWII. (p. 15.,16). At least if they could feel God wanted them to gain from it, they could endure it or try to find some joy somewhere. Weatherhead wisely points out that "the war did not make courage. It revealed the courage that was there all the time" (p. 16). God does not need evil to produce good. God can produce good despite evil. Our circumstances might bring out the best in us, whether they are terrible circumstances or wonderful circumstances. To think we need bad things to bring out the good is just a delusion, trying to make ourselves feel better. God wills the best for us in his intentional will; when this is temporarily thwarted, God can still use circumstances to work his will, without any loss in his original intention.

I have said a couple of times, God’s will might be "temporarily thwarted." This brings us to Weatherhead’s third and last category, "God’s ultimate will." In the end, God will win, and his will shall be accomplished totally and completely, despite all the evil that has happened in between.
What does God ultimately want? All that he intended in the beginning—our love, our wholeness, our joy, perfect communion with his creation and our willing obedience. Ultimately, God will get it.

Like Joseph in Egypt—being sold by his brothers into slavery, thrown into prison because of Potifar’s wife—these were evil events. The famine that brought Joseph’s family to Egypt in search of food was, no doubt, terrible, killing humans and beasts. But God was able to work good from these circumstances, bending them to his will, so that his chosen people were preserved. His ultimate will was not thwarted. One day, the faithful will all be gathered to God, and the effects of all that they went through here will be removed. In Revelation we read:

So, should we just go ahead and do what we want since God will win out in the end anyway? Certainly not! God did not create us to do evil, but to do good. As Paul said in Romans, "What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" (Rom 6:1,2). When we find new life in Christ, we call upon his power to resist sin and to endure suffering without that leading us into sin. That is God’s intentional will. Can we always do it? No. Can we in some way grow through it or past it or in spite of it? Yes. Will God be with us as we do that? Yes! That’s God’s circumstantial will. Will God bring about ultimate healing and restoration of his weary creation? Yes, that’s his ultimate will.

I hope these categories give you some food for thought as you read the newspaper, try to come to terms with events in your life and in the world, or try to discern the will of God for your life or for this church. And I hope these categories give you some comfort as you face what you must face in your particular situation. Hopefully, the next time you hear someone say, "Oh, it was God’s will," you will be able to think, well, in what way was it God’s will, or wasn’t it? Next week, we’ll look a bit more at how we are to find God’s will and do it.