Praying According to God’s Will

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I thought it would be good to talk just once more on prayer, just for the last time in this series,
loved ones. So, I just ask you, do you pray each day? Do you say your prayers each day, really? And
then for those of you whom I haven’t asked the question of before, do you realize that all the
church going is kind of silly hypocrisy unless you are praying each day, do you realize that? It’s
just the same thing as the pagans went through offering their sacrifices to kind of bribe God and
get him off their backs, that’s all we are doing here each Sunday unless you really do pray each
day. Because of course, there is going to come a day when you meet God and then it’s vital that you
will have spoken to him at some time during a whole 70 or 80 years of life. He will just ask you on
that day, “Now why didn’t you speak with me?”

So loved ones it’s vital that you speak with God. It’s really important that you speak with him each
day and that’s what prayer is, it’s just talking with God. And I just repeat briefly in a couple of
minutes that the objection that especially we men often make, but some of you ladies are just very
earthy practical types and we all tend to say the same thing, “Well I don’t know how to pray and I
don’t get anything out of it when I do pray.” And I remind you of the truth in this dear Book that
there is only thing that you need in order to pray and that’s mentioned if you would like to look at
it in Hebrews 11:6. “And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near
to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” That’s actually all you
need in order to pray. “For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he
rewards those who seek him.” That’s all you need, loved ones.

So I just encourage those of us who are maybe very cerebral or very practical and down to earth,
guys or girls or men or women, that you don’t need to be mystical or emotional nor do you need to
wonder, “What am I getting out of prayer?” It doesn’t matter whether you get anything out of prayer.
You have to talk with God, it’s just good sense. So could I plead with you just once more? Because
there will be some person here that will die before the end of this year and none of us are going to
be near you. It’s important for you to talk with God before that moment arrives. And then all of you
here are going to have some guy like myself coming and looking at you in a casket and then at that
time that fellow won’t be able to say anything to you, so I am speaking on behalf of that minister.
I am speaking on behalf of the pastor or the priest that will bury you and I am pleading with you
now, talk with God, start talking with him. And all you need to do is believe that he is there, you
don’t need to feel that he is there, you don’t need to feel any good feelings. That’s not what
prayer is about. You need to believe that God is there and you need to talk with him, that’s all you
do your bit; let him do his. So loved ones, do you talk with God?

One of the difficulties that many of us have in asking God for things comes up in the question that
probably you put yourself. Is it right to put the tag on the end of the prayer “if it be thy will”?
And I think a lot of us wonder about that, where we ask God for something and then it sounds the
right thing to do to say “if it be thy will”. And so many of us do pray like that. We go to God in
prayer and we pray the best that we know for ourselves or our friends or our relatives or our
colleagues and then we add the tag on at the end “if it be thy will”. Now, we realize that there is
a difficulty in that because other people tell us to pray in faith and then somebody like me says to
you, today exercise faith through the rest of this week for what you have prayed for. And of course
in the back your mind that little tag kind of undermines it because you’ve said to yourself, “Well,
yeah, but how can I continue to exercise faith for this answer if I am not really quite sure that it

is what God wants? And that’s why I’ve said, Lord if it would be your will.” And for those of us who
are kind of practical business people we know ourselves that it gives you no confidence at all, that
it’s just a bluff thing. You are just shooting a prayer up to God and you are saying, “Answer it if
it be your will” and you kind of have to leave it up there in the air somewhere and maybe hope that
it will fall down. If it falls down it was his will and if it doesn’t fall down it wasn’t his will.

And so most of us who have anything to do with ordinary business or professional life know that we
couldn’t operate that way, we couldn’t. We couldn’t go into a bank and say, “Well, I’d like this
$25,000, it’s vital to my business, so I ask you for it if it’s your will. And meanwhile I will go
on and if it falls down on my head then I will know it’s your will. If it’s not I know it’s not your
will.” We wouldn’t operate that way and we wouldn’t go to the dentist and say, “Look I would like
this molar filled.” I believe we fill molars. My wife is a dentist. Now I am supposed to know all
this in detail, “but I want my molar filled and it’s paining me and I’d ask you to do it if it’s
your will?” And then go away from the dental office and wonder “Well, I wonder if it’s his will?”
And then he happens to call you for an appointment, so you say, “Oh! It must be his will, good.”

So we couldn’t operate that way in ordinary practical life. And actually brothers and sisters you
must admit with that kind of tag on the end of a prayer you don’t operate realistically with God,
you don’t. You eventually give up praying I think because you recognize this is just a game. I’m
just shooting up these wishful thoughts to God and asking him to answer them if it’s his will. And
really it just becomes very unreal as far as the relationship goes. Another difficulty with it is in
1st John 5:14. “And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according
to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have
obtained the request made of him.” So you see verse 15 is the basis of being able to walk in faith.
“If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the request made of
him.” So if we know he has heard us, we know he is going to answer the request.

Now how do you know that he hears you? Well, you have to go to the previous sentence. “This is the
confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” So, if
we ask anything according to his will we know that he hears us and if we know that he hears us we
know that he will answer us. So the whole basis of prayer is, being able to ask according to God’s
will. Brothers and sisters it’s no use this stuff of “Lord do this, if it’s your will.” That’s not
the way we’ve to pray. This dear Word emphasizes that we have to pray according to God’s will and
the only way we will know that God is going to answer us, is if we’ve prayed according to his will.
And you remember we spent the past three or four Sundays saying what Jesus said, “You have no need
to ask because God knows what you need before you ask it.” And he says, “God knows it already.” So
the only reason for asking is that you know what God wants you to have and you know that he won’t
answer it unless you agree with him.

So the only way is to know God’s will. God has a will for every detail of your life, you see. There
is nothing in your life that God does not understand and that he has not an answer for. But he
cannot make that real in your life until you ask him because he won’t overrule your freewill. He
won’t just drop things on you that he knows you need unless you ask him for those things. Otherwise
you become a little passive robot who receives and is operated and ruled and run by God independent
of what you want. So even though the Father knows what you need he knows the money you need, he
knows the job you need, he knows what your family needs he cannot do it unless you ask him. And the
only way you can ask him is if you know what he wills for you. You have to know God’s will for your
life. That’s it, loved ones.

If you say to me, do you mean generally? You mean broadly speaking what his will is for my career?
No, for every detail of your life. God knows what you should do with that difficult situation in the
office. He knows that. He knows what you should do in that business transaction that you are trying
to decide about, he knows; he has a will for that. And he wants you to know it and then ask him for
it and he will manifest that. He will bring it about.

Now, how can you know God’s will? How can you and I come to know God’s will for our lives? Why I
felt I should speak once more on prayer is because of the answer to that question, it’s so
important. How do you know God’s will for your life or how can you come to know what his will is for
you in every little detail of your life? There is a vital key that is the answer to that and I’m
introducing it to you and preparing you for it because it’s so important, loved ones. There is only
one way in which you can begin to know God’s will for your own life. Now I will show you. It’s in
1st Thessalonians 5:18, and this loved ones is just a deep one, so you really need to let it come
into your heart, and your spirit. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you.” In your present state exactly as you are at this moment with the car that you
own at this moment, with the wife that you have at this moment, with the sick friend that you have
at this moment, with the pain in your leg that you have at this moment, with the hideous work
situation that you have at this moment, with the hopelessness with which you look forward to the
next few months that you have at this moment, give thanks, give thanks. Give thanks in all
circumstances, why? “For this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus”, that’s it.

If you won’t stop being squirrelly, if you keep on wriggling and saying, “Well I know this isn’t
God’s will, well I know this isn’t God’s will, I know it wouldn’t be his will that I would be in
this situation. I know this isn’t, so I will squirm and I’ll squirrel until I wriggle myself into a
situation that I think might be his will”, loved ones do you see God will never be able to get
through to you his will because you will never be at rest. Your own mind will be sending up so many
prayers. Your own heart will be desiring so many things that God will not be able to reveal his will
to you for your life. The first step is to accept what you are now, where you are now in all the
circumstances that you are now, as God’s will, start somewhere. You see you have to start somewhere
and that’s such a step of faith. It’s such a great step of faith because it’s saying, “Lord God,
it’s you that have allowed me to come into this situation at this time. I have made mistakes, I have
made errors, people have done me in, people have betrayed me, and things have not fallen out right
in the economy. Physical things have taken place that I couldn’t control but those things did not
bring me where I am today. You were able to overrule all those things and I believe that you were in
everything working for good for me. And so Lord God with all the errors and sins and mistakes that I
have made and done and with all the things that people have done against me and with all the things
that have happened by chance, Lord God I give you thanks in these circumstances. Because I know that
this is the will of God for me in Christ Jesus at this time.”

Brothers and sisters that is such a step towards reality that you cannot grasp it because a mere man
says it. But it’s such a magnificent step towards maturity in your life if you will stop this
morning wishing it was different. If you will stop pretending that it is different. If you will stop
pretending that it is different and if you will just accept the circumstances and the situation that
you are in today and not with resentment but giving thanks to God. “Lord God, I want to thank you
for the present situation I am in. I want to thank you for the situation I am in internally,
mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I want to thank you for the position I am in
financially and economically. I want to thank you for the position I am in domestically. Lord God, I
want to stop wriggling. I want to stop being a squirrelly stupid little thing that will not accept
that you have brought me to this place. Lord God, thank you, thank you for this situation.” Loved

ones, there comes into your heart and your spirit such a peace and a rest when you at last do that,
that God is at last able to begin to get through to you and reveal to you what his next step for you
is. But you see unless you do that you are so filled with discontent, you are so filled with
dissatisfaction, and you are so filled with wishes and your preferences that God can’t reveal to you
what his will is.

Now I know what some of you are saying. “Brother, if you knew my circumstances, you would know that
it cannot possibly be God’s will for me. If you knew my financial situation, you would know it could
not possibly be God’s will for me.” Loved ones, that’s why it says, “This is the will of God for you
in Christ Jesus.” Because in Christ Jesus God has done something that negates and neutralizes the
bad effects of your circumstances upon you. Now I will show what it is, it’s in Galatians 6:14. “But
far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world.” Now I know loved ones that some of you may have real trouble
with that phrase but I would be glad to attempt to explain it.

In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world was crucified to me, God took the cosmos,
that’s the Greek word for world, the cosmos. It’s not the physical earth. It’s the whole world
system that has been set up independent of God. He took that whole world system with all its
principalities and powers and spirits and he put it into Christ and he destroyed it there so that
that cannot have the effect on you that it is intended to have. So, you were deceived into some
ridiculous loan. Maybe you wanted instant gratification the way most of us do and you just had to
have the car or you had to have the building, you had to have this other business or you had to have
the stereo but somehow or other, you were deceived or you’ve fumbled your way into some ridiculous
loan, which is now exerting it’s usual enslaving, imprisoning pressure upon you. So that, dear love
you, you are like a little robot or the money comes in and goes out, you don’t have much
discretionary money left because you are just shelling it all out in this loan or in a series of
loans.

So you were deceived or you’ve fumbled your way into a loan or a series of loans, that you are now
paying big payments on each month and of course you are experiencing what we’ve all experienced in
that situation. You are experiencing just bondage. You are just bound hand and foot, you can hardly
move. You have just a little money to deal with the groceries and the gas and a few other things and
you are tight. And so there are spirits and powers behind that. You are not tight just because your
poor old mind has worked out “Boy, if I don’t pay they’ll repossess it or if I don’t pay this I’ll
go bankrupt.” That’s not it; it’s not the little mental calculations that are wearing you down.

There are spirits and powers behind a whole loan system of the world. The whole loan system was set
up because we can’t wait, we can’t wait, we can’t wait, we must have it now and we’ve got used to
it. I mean we are all in it together, we’ve got used to this system, but its set up basically
independent of God. God’s plan is, give us this day our daily bread. You love the daily bread and
you’ll be worried only about today; you won’t worry about tomorrow and that’s his plan. But all of
us have got out of that plan in different ways and we’ve wanted to have the thing today and we
pulled upon ourselves all kinds of spirits and powers and principalities that lie behind the loans.

You remember I once outlined to you where your money probably comes from. It’s ridiculous because it
shows you that we human beings are the innocent or the simple dupes of the spirits. A lot of your
loan money, you think it comes from some huge Norwest National Bank or some huge financial
organization that you just hate like crazy or it comes from some subtle money lenders, who actually
want to choke you to death, it doesn’t. It probably comes from some dear old lady whose son owns

Schmidt’s Beer Company or owns some other company and she is the last remaining unmarried sister or
daughter and she is sitting in some mansion in Minnetonka or somewhere else and she hasn’t a clue
that her money is causing you the agony that it’s causing, she has no notion. She is just fiddling
about feeding the birds and her attorney or her accountant comes in from time to time and tells her
how much she has made on the millions. So you see it’s not that we human beings hate each other, we
are choking ourselves to death but there are spirits and principalities and powers that are involved
in the whole system. And the loan system is only one part of the cosmos you see, the pecking
system. The pecking order, that’s another one. The whole pecking order in businesses and in
professions the whole business of touching your forelock, it used to be in old Irish days but it’s
still that we don’t touch our forelock but it is still the same thing.

You know who you have to please and who you have to avoid displeasing. It is spiritual
principalities and powers that exert the binding power of those things upon you. You think it’s the
loan, you think it’s the boss; you think it’s the economy, it’s not. Behind all that cosmos system
are spiritual principalities and powers that bring the real agony into your dear heart that makes
your tummy turn and turn at night and makes it impossible for you to sleep and makes you worried and
weary of life. It’s the spiritual principalities and powers that do that.

Now in Christ, God crucified that world system. And in fact there is another place in the Bible
where it says, “He destroyed the principalities and powers” and he took away their power to destroy
you through the loan systems, through the pecking order systems, through all the other systems that
you are involved in. That’s why he says, “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of
God for you in Christ Jesus.” Because in Christ Jesus God has taken away the power of those
circumstances to destroy you, he has. Even if you have AIDS, if you have AIDS, through your own lust
or your own desire for the pleasure that God did not want you to have at that time. If you have AIDS
you can give thanks to God because the Father in Christ Jesus has destroyed the power of that
disease to bring you into overwhelming guilt and self justification that eventually causes you to be
lost eternally. And he can enable you to be forgiven and to enter heaven with the rest of us, if you
are willing to put your trust and your submission again in God.

So loved ones whatever your circumstances are God has destroyed the power of those circumstances to
destroy you because he has taken away the power of the principalities to use them against you.
That’s why the first step is, give thanks in all circumstances. And those of you have had tragedies
in your family or accidents, God has already taken away the power inside that circumstance to
destroy your friends or your relatives or you and that’s why he is saying to you, give thanks,
settle, be at home, stop resenting, stop saying “No, no this isn’t God’s will.” Because what you do
when you do that is you stop exercising faith in God and you start putting your faith in Satan, the
one who is out to bring chaos into your life.

So loved ones the first step in coming to know God’s will for you, so that you will be able to ask
him to fulfill that will in detail, is to come to a place of peace and rest about your present life.
And could you do that just this morning? You know your life, each of us know the details of our
personal lives this morning. Could you come to a place this morning where you just thank God?

“Lord, I thank you. I am going to stop resenting you. I am going to stop resenting these intrusions
that have come into my life, these unpleasant circumstances. I am going to stop resenting that,
Lord. You knew these were coming and you allowed them so you must know what you are going to achieve
in me through them. So Father I want to thank you now for these circumstances. I want to thank you
for everything that I have in my present life. I want to thank you for that person in my home that

just wears me out. I want to thank you for that person, Lord. I want to stop resenting her or stop
resenting him. Lord I want to thank you for the shortcomings of my husband or my wife or my
children. Father, I want to stop resenting them. I want to stop playing the big judge, the superior
one, who knows how they should be. Lord, I want just to start thanking you for them. I thank you for
even the shortcomings that they have. Even the things that up to now have irritated me, Lord, I want
to thank you for these because I know you have put these here for my good and that you have taken
away any power these things have to destroy me or hurt my life in anyway, so I know that all that
remains is something good for me in these situations. Lord, I want to thank you for this ridiculous
loan that I got myself into. It’s wearing me down but Lord I thank you for it now and I know it’s in
your hands and I know you have destroyed the spirits and powers behind it that would wear me down
with anxiety and wear me into the grave. Lord, I want to thank you for this loan. I know in some way
I brought it upon myself but Lord you allowed it to come so I thank you for it and I thank you that
you will provide the grace and strength to meet it and indeed I give it to you; it is your loan,
Lord.”

And then those problems that you have, those things that you have not solved. “Lord I want to thank
you for this difficulty that I am facing. I want to thank you for this problem that I see no
solution to. I see no way forward Father. Father I want to stop taking it as my problem, I want to
stop resenting it, I want to stop worrying about it, I want to thank you for it and Lord it’s not my
problem. You allowed it to come here into my life so that you could show an answer for it. I want to
give it to you. I won’t accept that problem as mine. I give it to you, Lord. And I thank you for
it.”

Loved ones, how about just doing that this morning. You must be like me; so many things come into
our lives that we end up resenting and we end up worrying about and wishing were different and the
dear Lord is saying to us, “Would you stop wishing things were different and would you see that I
have allowed these things to come and I have them all organized. I just want you to settle, for
goodness sake, settle and begin to have faith in me and begin to thank me for these things.” Loved
ones, there will come a whole spirit into your life of light and revelation, there really will. So I
don’t want to make a big thing of it, I just want to ask maybe Carmen to play “Have Thine Own Way”
on the piano and then just those of us who want just come up to the alter and give thanks to God.
“In all circumstances for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” Just do it and go back
to your seat and maybe then we’ll at the end sing “Have Thine Own Way Lord”.