Novelist Charles Dickens called him “one of the greatest masters of elocution I ever knew.” High praise indeed!
Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson (1818-1853) was born into a family of soldiers. His father was an artillery officer, his grandfather a colonel, and his brothers all became career military men. His dad wanted one of his sons to become a pastor and enrolled F.W. in Oxford to study theology. When it came time for his ordination, the bishop took his personal circumstances into consideration when he chose F.W.’s ordination sermon text, “Endure hardship as a good soldier in Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2.3). F. W. became one of England’s most influential preachers during his ministry at Trinity Church in Brighton. His impactful sermons refuted the belief that one cannot preach theology with popular appeal. He sought to answer two essential questions in every sermon: “What does the text mean?” and “What does it mean for our times?” He was, by all accounts, an original thinker, who appealed to the working class as well as cultural elites. When he died at thirty-seven, the entire city of Brighton, one hundred thousand strong, shut down to honor him. His printed sermons were widely distributed after his death.
F. W.’s sermon on prayer has added relevance for our daily prayer focus. He asks at the sermon’s outset, “Does prayer work on God or does it work on us?” Great question! Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane to relinquish his desires to the Father’s will. F.W. said, “Pray until prayer makes you forget your wish and leave it or merge it with God’s will.” He asks at the end of his sermon whether prayer really changes anything. He answers “You have lost the certainty of getting your wish. You get instead the compensation of knowing the best possible, best for you, best for all, will be accomplished.”
We join in praying for God’s will to be done in this expansion of the Lord’s Prayer from the 1646 Westminster Confession: