Your Will Be Done

Faith in God's Providence

The Submitted Life · The Quiet Life · The Enduring Life

Speaker: Thomas Garvin Church: Life & Truth Missions Date: 26 July 2026 Main Scripture: Colossians 3:12–14; 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12; Psalm 37:4; Romans 5:3–5 (ESV)

Before You Listen

In the modern church the Christian life is often 'sold' with a grand plan of perpetual breakthroughs and a rockstar faith lifestyle where God arranges the world around us. This message takes a hammer to that idea and puts something older and sturdier in its place: the submitted life, the quiet life, and the enduring life.

It's a call to stop treating God like a vending machine unlocked with the right words or the right giving, and to start living quietly and honestly before him. Along the way we correct one of the most misused verses in the Bible (Psalm 37:4), and we look to the early martyrs to ask a question that lands with weight: are we there yet? Or have we gone soft? Press play, open your Bible, and listen.

After You've Listened — Recap & Application

1. The Submitted Life

Clothe yourselves — as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved — with compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and above all love, "which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Colossians 3:12–14). This is the language of surrender, not self-advancement. The trouble is that we've grown dissatisfied with God's instructions on how to live; we want the world to revolve around us, and it doesn't. You are not the center of the universe. God is sovereign. His purposes come as a consequence of obedience, not a reward we engineer.

2. The Quiet Life

"Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands... so that you may walk properly before outsiders" (1 Thessalonians 4:11–12). The real work happens in the quiet places, not the obvious sins, but the hidden things: resentment, gossip, ingratitude. It's easy to look pious among other Christians while the heart in the quiet place is rotten. Two honest tests: 

1. what do the people who know you best say about you? It doesn't mean they're right but it's a good place to start.
2. And when someone says "I think you're wrong," what's your first reaction — anger, rage? That's a diagnosis worth taking seriously.

This week's homework: quietly bless a brother or sister, with money, time, a meal... and tell no one (Matthew 6:3).

3. Correcting Psalm 37:4

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Read in context, the whole psalm is about trust and submission. Fret not, commit your way to him, be still and wait. The point isn't "delight and you'll get what you want." It's that when you truly delight in the Lord, the desires of your heart change to match his. There is no formula for forcing God's hand, no verse you can quote back to make him act. He isn't waiting for you to unlock his power with the right seed offering. Put that teaching away.

4. The Enduring Life

Here's the hinge: adversity is the plan, not a sign something has gone wrong.

• "In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
• "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).
• It has been granted to us not only to believe but to suffer for Christ (Philippians 1:29).

Suffering produces endurance; endurance, character; character, hope — "and hope does not put us to shame" (Romans 5:3–5). Count it all joy when you meet trials, that you may be "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (James 1:2–4). Not because God handed you a fortune, but because you endured and stood when others ran. Don't read circumstances as signs: smooth sailing isn't proof God is "in it," and hardship isn't proof he's abandoned it. Hard times are coming, and many won't be ready because they never learned to endure. So be the one who keeps it together in the hardest day, the toughest of times. Not unfeeling, but formed, strong and ready. Someone others can lean on.

5. Witnesses from the Early Church

Around Lyon in the second century, a large group of Christians was arrested (the Romans, ironically, called them atheists — the same charge old Polycarp threw back by pointing at the crowd). One after another they went to brutal deaths singing and giving thanks. Some who renounced Christ to save themselves weren't even released — and as they watched their brothers and sisters die, they repented, crying out to the jailer, "We are sorry. We are Christians. Bring us out." The question hangs in the air: are we there yet?

The Bottom Line

God is sovereign. His will is good. He does not need your permission. Live submitted, do the quiet work, and endure. When you pray, and bring your real needs, end where Jesus ended in Gethsemane: but your will be done. Whatever God does with it is good, for he works all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Endure, brothers and sisters.