Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2715
“Not as I will, but as You will.” Matthew 26:39.
THE Apostle Paul, writing concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, says, “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” He who, as God, knew all things, had to learn obedience in the time of His humiliation. He who is, in Himself, Wisdom Incarnate, did, Himself, condescend to enter the school of suffering—there we learn that important lesson of the Christian life—obedience to the will of God. And here, in Gethsemane’s Garden, you can see the Divine Scholar going forth to practice His lesson. He had been, all His lifetime, learning it, and now He has to learn it for the last time in His agony and bloody sweat, and in His terrible death upon the Cross. Now is He to discover the utmost depths of suffering and to attain to the height of the knowledge of obedience. See how well He has learned His lesson! Note how complete and ripe a scholar He is! He has attained to the very highest class in that school and, in the immediate prospect of death, can say to His Father, “Not as I will, but as You will.”
The objective of this discourse is to commend to you the blessed example of our Lord Jesus Christ and, as God the Holy Spirit shall help me, to urge you to be made like unto your glorious Head, and yourselves to learn, by all the daily Providences with which God is pleased to surround you, this lesson of resignation to the will of God, and of making an entire surrender to Him.
I have been struck lately, in reading works by some writers who belong to the Romish Church, with the marvelous love which they have towards the Lord Jesus Christ. I did think, at one time, that it could not be possible for any to be saved in that church, but, often, after I have risen from reading the books of those holy men and have felt myself to be quite a dwarf by their side, I have said, “Yes, despite their errors, these men must have been taught of the Holy Spirit. Notwithstanding all the evils of which they have drunk so deeply, I am quite certain that they must have had fellowship with Jesus, or else they could not have written as they did.” Such writers are few and far between but, still, there is a remnant according to the election of Grace even in the midst of that apostate church!
Looking at a book by one of them, the other day, I met with this remarkable expression, “Shall that body which has a thorn-crowned Head, have delicate, pain-fearing members? God forbid!” That remark went straight to my heart at once. I thought how often the children of God shun pain, reproach and rebuke—and think it to be a strange thing when some fiery trial happens to them. If they would but remember that their Head had to sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and that their Head was crowned with thorns, it would not seem strange to them that the members of His mystical body have also to suffer.
If Christ had been some delicate Person. If our glorious Head had been reposing upon the soft pillow of ease, then might we, who are the members of His Church, have expected to go through this world with joy and comfort. But if He must be bathed in His own blood. If the thorns must pierce His temples. If His lips must be parched and if His mouth must be dried up like a furnace—shall we escape suffering and agony? Is Christ to have a head of brass and hands of gold? Is His head to be as if it glowed in the furnace, and are not we to glow in the furnace, too? Must He pass through seas of suffering and shall we—
“Be carried to the skies,
On flowery beds of ease”?
Ah, no! We must be conformed unto our Lord in His humiliation if we would be made like He also in His Glory!
So, Brothers and Sisters, I have to speak to you upon this lesson which some of us have begun to learn, but of which as yet we know so little—this lesson of saying, “Not as I will, but as You will.” First, let me explain the meaning of this prayer Then, urge you, by certain reasons, to make this your constant cry Next, show what will be the happy effect of its being the paramount desire of your spirits. And we will conclude with a practical enquiry—what can bring us to this blessed condition?
I. First, then, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS PRAYER? “Not as I will, but as You will.” I shall not address myself to those Christians who are but as dwarfs, who know little about the things of the Kingdom of God. I will speak rather to those who do business in the deep waters of communion, who know what it is to pillow their heads upon the bosom of Jesus, to walk with God as Enoch did, and to talk with Him as Abraham did. My dear Brothers and Sisters, only such as you can understand this prayer in all its length and breadth. Your Brother, who as yet scarcely knows the meaning of the word, communion, may pray thus in some feeble measure, yet it is not to be expected that he should discern all the spiritual teaching that there is in these words of our Lord. But to you who are Christ-taught. You who have become ripe scholars in the school of Christ—to you I may speak as unto wise men and women— judge what I say.