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WEEKLY
Volume 4 Number 33
10 January 2010
A Willing Heart
(Message delivered by Rev Hien Nguyen at the
Worship Service, 2:00 pm, Jan 10, 10)
Text: Phil 2:12-16
By God’s grace we have learnt about a
loving heart, a joyful heart, a peaceful heart, a long-suffering heart,
a kind and gentle heart, a meek heart, a humble heart, a good heart, a
faithful heart, a prayerful heart, a thankful heart, a pure heart, a
God-fearing heart, a Spirit-filled heart, a Christ-like heart, a
watchful heart, a hopeful heart, etc. However, do you and I truly desire
to have such a good heart or have we forgotten the lessons and not cared
about our hearts before the Lord? God is able to transform our sinful,
deceitful and rebellious hearts to a heart like our Lord Jesus Christ’s,
but are you and I willing to humbly submit ourselves to Him like the
clay in the Divine Potter’s hands so that He may freely do His good work
in us? “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”
(Phil 1:6).
Even though God, by His grace alone,
will perform His good work in you and me until the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ, we must have a willing heart to cooperate with Him by our trust,
dependence and obedience. That is God’s sovereignty and human
responsibility. Although God “will (desire – thelo)
have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”
(1 Tim 2:4) and “not willing (thelo) that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter
3:9), but not all mankind will be automatically saved except those who
willingly respond to God’s Word and call by receiving His gracious
salvation in Christ. God’s Word commands and encourages you and me to
“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12).
Why with fear and trembling? “For it is God which worketh in you both
to will and to do of his good pleasure” (v 13). It should be noted
that the verb “work out” in Greek, katergazomai, means
accomplish, to carry out a task until it is finished (Zodhiates). As
“salvation is of the Lord”
alone (Jonah 2:9) and “so then it is not of him that willeth (thelo),
nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom 9:16),
we can never “work for” our salvation by our good works and merits, but
once we have been freely saved by God’s grace through faith alone (Eph
2:8), we must bear good fruit of a saved Christian by our dependence on
and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ like the branch attached to the
Vine (John 15:1-8). Otherwise, we shall be cut off, “Every branch in
me that beareth not fruit he taketh away” (John 15:2). Does not this
fill us with fear and trembling?
Dear friends, it is God who is working
in your heart and my heart so that we may be willing to do His will! It
is amazing! However, we must be willing to cooperate with our Lord by
our trust and obedience. If we fail to do this, we are quenching the
Holy Spirit (1 Thess 5:19) and hindering His good work in us. We are
prompted by the Holy Spirit to seek God first, to pray to Him, to read
His Word, to repent of our sins, to depart from sin and evil, to obey
His will, to keep His Word, to worship Him and serve Him in spirit and
in truth, to trust in Him and wait upon Him, to share His salvation with
others, and so forth, are we willing to cooperate with Him by our trust
and obedience? May the Lord graciously help us!
A Willing Heart to Do God’s Will
and Word
The Greek term for “to will” (Phil
2:13) is thelo, with 210 occurrences; and the KJV translates as
“will/would” 159 times, “will/would have” 16 times, “desire” 13 times,
“desirous” three times, “list” three times, “to will” twice, and
translated miscellaneously four times. Thelo means: (1) “to be
ready” (with a nuance “to consent”) or “to like”; (2) “to want”; (3) “to
wish,” “to be about to do something,” “to be used to doing something,”
“to intend”; (4) to express resolve as free or weighed decision,
sometimes with the idea of choice or preference, and religiously with
the nuance of resolute willingness (considered or stubborn refusal in
the negative) (Kittel).
Then if you and I have a willing heart
to do God’s will and Word, we must willingly desire, agree, and want to
and be ready to do God’s will and Word. When Rebekah was asked if she
was willing to go with Abraham’s servant to be Isaac’s wife, “Wilt
thou go with this man?”, she willingly desired, wanted and was ready
to go, saying, “I will go” (Gen 24:58).
Shall you and I willingly do the same
to God’s Word and call? “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And
let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And
whosoever will (thelo), let him take the water of life
freely” (Rev 22:17). Shall you and I willingly respond to our Lord’s
challenges? “If any man will (thelo) come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me”
(Luke 9:23) and “If any man desire (thelo)
to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all”
(Mark 9:35), and “Yea, and all that will (thelo)
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12).
To Have a Willing Heart to Do God’s
Will and Word
To Be Born Again:
Human nature is sinful, corrupt and rebellious (Jer 17:9), so we should
not be surprised when many do not desire for the Lord or God’s Word,
“But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me” (Ezek
20:8), and “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will (thelo)
not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:39-40). Our Lord
Jesus cried over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would (thelo)
not!” (Matt 23:37), and “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a
certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his
servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would
(thelo) not come” with their excuses (Matt
22:2-3). We usually invite our friends and relatives to come to our
Bible study and dinner fellowship, but not many are willing to come!
Many others do not want to have the Lord and His Word to reign over
them, “But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him,
saying, We will (thelo) not have this man to reign over
us” (Luke 19:14). When Pilate wanted to release Jesus, asking the
Jews, “What will (thelo) ye then that I shall do unto
him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify
him” (Mark 15:12-13). That is the true colour of human hearts. Many
want to show off their goodness and kindness while they do not want the
Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts and lives!
The consequence of unwillingly
following and obeying God’s will and Word is serious, “But those mine
enemies, which would (thelo) not that I should reign over
them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19:27). How about
those who despise the privilege of being God’s children? “For ye know
how that afterward, when he (Esau) would (thelo)
have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of
repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb 12:17).
Dear friends, the only way to have a
willing heart to do God’s will and Word is to be born again so that we
may “be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Are you
sure that you are saved and born again? If any of you still doubt about
your salvation, just come back to the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer, open
your heart and receive Him as your Saviour, your Lord, and your King
(Rev 3:20). Once you have sincerely done this, you can be sure of your
salvation no matter how you feel or what others may say. Why? The Lord
Jesus Christ is your salvation. God has given you His only begotten Son
(John 3:16). When you receive Jesus Christ, you receive God’s salvation;
and having Him, you have His salvation, “The LORD is my light and my
salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of
whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps 27:1).
Humbly Trust in and Rely on the
Lord: A person
who is not born again does not desire for God or His Word, and he does
not have a conflict between God’s will and his will in his heart. When
you and I are born again, we shall have a desire to please God and to
obey His Word but have no power or strength to do it, “For I know
that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will
(thelo) is present with me; but how to perform that which
is good I find not” (Rom 7:18). God will teach us to rely on Him for
life, power and strength moment and moment like the branch on the Vine
(John 15:1-8), and we shall humbly trust in Him and rely on Him always
without any pride or arrogance.
Watch and Pray:
Satan does not like you and me to do God’s will and Word, so you and I
must “watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit
indeed is willing (próthumos), but the flesh is weak”
(Matt 26:41). When we fail to obey God’s Word, there is always a chance
for us to repent and to do God’s Word again like the first son who
“answered and said, I will (thelo) not: but afterward he
repented, and went” (Matt 21:29).
Submit to God’s Will:
As God’s will is
“good, and acceptable, and perfect” (Rom 12:2), it is wise for you
and me to submit ourselves to God’s will unto death like our Saviour
Jesus Christ, who fervently prayed to His Father, “Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless
not what I will (thelo), but what thou wilt (thelo)”
(Mark 14:36).
Respect Others’ Willingness:
It is not easy to ask others to do what they do not like or want to do.
We should pray to God for them so that God may work in their hearts and
help them “both to will and to do of his good pleasure” without
“murmurings and disputings” (Phil 2:13-14). We should be meek and
respect their willingness,
“But without thy mind would
(thelo) I do nothing; that
thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly” (Philm
14), and “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would (thelo)
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law
and the prophets” (Matt 7:12).
Conclusion
Dear friends, it is a great blessing
to love God, serve Him and obey His will and Word with a willing heart
because we desire for Him and His Word above all, “Whom have I in
heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee”
(Ps 72:25), and “I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great
spoil” (Ps 119:162). May God help you and me humbly submit to and
rely on Him moment by moment all the days of our lives. May God continue
His good work in you and me and help us cooperate with Him to do His
will with “a willing heart” (Exod 35:5) and with “a willing mind” (1
Chron 28:9) and bear much fruit for His glory. Amen.
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