Not My Will, but Thine
Through submission to God's will, we can find strength and receive more from Him, trusting in His goodness and sovereignty.
A.B. Simpson emphasizes that just as Jesus faced suffering in Gethsemane, we too can find strength and victory through submission to God's will. He encourages believers to approach their struggles not with defiance but with a spirit of surrender, echoing Jesus' words, 'Not my will, but thine be done.' This act of submission is not a loss of hope but a pathway to greater strength through faith and prayer. By letting go of our own desires, we open ourselves to receive God's blessings in a more profound way, transforming our sacrifices into opportunities for resurrection life.
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Jesus who once suffered in Gethsemane will be our strength and our victory, too. We may fear, we may also sink, but let us not be dismayed, and we shall yet praise Him and look back from a finished course and say, Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord [our] God spake concerning [us] (Joshua 23:14). But in order to do this, we must, like Jesus, meet the conflict, not with a defiant but with a submissive spirit. He had to say, Not my will, but thine be done, but in saying it He gained the very thing He surrendered.
The submission of Gethsemane is not a blind and dead submission of a heart that abandons all its hope, but it is the free submission that bows the head in order to get double strength through faith and prayer.
We let go in order that we may take a firmer hold. We give up in order that we may more fully receive. We lay our Isaac on Mount Moriah, and we receive him back, no longer our Isaac, but God's Isaac and infinitely more secure because he is returned to us in resurrection life.
Sermon Outline
- Submission in Conflict
- The Example of Jesus
- The Spirit of Submission
- The Reward of Submission
Key Quotes
“We let go in order that we may take a firmer hold. We give up in order that we may more fully receive.” — A.B. Simpson
“We lay our Isaac on Mount Moriah, and we receive him back, no longer our Isaac, but God's Isaac and infinitely more secure because he is returned to us in resurrection life.” — A.B. Simpson
Application Points
- We must be willing to surrender our desires and plans to God's greater plan, trusting in His goodness and sovereignty.
- Through submission, we can find strength and receive more from God, trusting in His faithfulness and provision.
- Letting go of our own desires and plans can lead to a deeper trust in God and a greater sense of security and peace.