A Word For Today | John 6:38-40
Jesus said that He came into our world with work to be done: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 6:38). This verse, which tells of Jesus’ earthly mission, reminds us that Christ embraced the humility and pain of life in our world in order to accomplish the work appointed to Him by the Father. In this, He sets us an example, that even in hard and trying times, Christians are to do the will of God. Yet the whole of our hope lies not in what we do, but in what Jesus was born in the Bethlehem manger to accomplish.
Jesus spoke confidently of his success: “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (Jn. 6:39). If someone asks you what is God’s will, here is the answer! God’s will is that His Son should accomplish the salvation of sinners and raise them up on the last day. In John 6:38-39, Jesus describes His people both from God’s perspective and from a human perspective. God has decreed salvation for certain people, who were given by the Father to His Son in eternity past. Our Savior says He will “lose nothing of all that he has given me” (Jn. 6:39). Speaking from our perspective, Jesus adds: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (Jn. 6:40). These are the same people: those who were given by the Father to His Son and those who look on Jesus in faith! Jesus says that He came on the mission of giving these people eternal life.
With this in mind, if someone asks what God is doing with the coronavirus pandemic – or anything else that happens in this world – the Christian may answer: Christ is saving the people given to Him by the Father, by bringing them to saving faith, and sanctifying them until they enter eternal life and are raised again. How urgent it is, then, that we should believe on Jesus, confess our sins, and look in faith to His cross! And if we have believed in Jesus, then we know what God’s will is for us: eternal life in the final resurrection. We are not merely wishing or hoping for salvation, but we know that this is God’s will!
Christ’s Word gives us a heavenly perspective on these trying times. Martyn Lloyd-Jones exults: “There is a purpose to life, there is a purpose to the whole world. . . . The purpose of God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is to save man. What a blessing it is to be able to look up unto God and see that before he even made the world he had a great purpose of redemption.”[1] We may further rejoice to know that nothing – not even a worldwide pandemic – will thwart the will of God and the mission of His Son. Truly, as Paul wrote, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Phillips
[1] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I Am Not Ashamed, 109-110.