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TEXT: Ephesians 5:17
SUBJECT: God’s Will #1
Tonight and tomorrow, with the Lord’s blessing, we’ll explore the topic Finding God’s Will for Your Life.
To believers today, no subject holds more interest than finding God’s will for your life. In 1968 Joseph Bayly wrote
"If there is a serious concern among Christian
students today, it is for guidance. Holiness may
have been the passion of another generation or
soul winning or evangelizing the world…but not
today. Today the theme is getting to know the
Will of God".
If you keep up with Christian books and magazines, listen to Christian radio, or go to seminars and workshops, you know what was true in 1968 is still true—only more so. In today’s uncertain times, there is a sharp hunger for knowing God’s will.
But along with this keen interest in knowing God’s will is an uneasy feeling that we have not found it. The books, magazines, sermons and classes have not delivered the goods. People who want to know the will of God cannot find it—no matter how hard they try.
If they were all hypocrites, we would understand why they couldn’t find God’s will—because, deep down, they don’t want to. The problem is: they’re not all phonies. In fact, the holier they are the more likely they are to struggle with finding God’s will for their lives. J.I. Packer says,
"I find that the more earnest and sensitive a believer
is, the more likely he is to be hung up somewhere
about guidance. And, if I am any judge, the anxiety
level on the subject continues to rise".
THE QUESTION
Why is this? Why can’t sincere believers find God’s will for their lives?
It’s not God. The Lord can disclose His will to us. But not only can He do it, He promises to do it. Psalm 32:8 says,
"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you
should go; I will guide you with My eye".
Proverbs 3:5-6 is even fuller,
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not
lean on your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths".
The guidance He promises is not a one-time affair or reserved for crisis times only, but is an ongoing thing, Psalm 48:14,
"For this is our God, our God forever and
ever; He will be our guide even to death".
Based on the character and promises of God, believers ought to know what the Lord wants them to do. But, still, we don’t.
Maybe the problem is with us. The Bible plainly teaches that willful, unconfessed sins will hinder our fellowship with God, cloud our judgment, and result in many hurtful and unnecessary blunders. That’s always a possibility, Psalm 66:18,
"If I regard iniquity in my heart,
the Lord will not hear me".
But what if you have confessed your sins? What if you truly want to know the will of God for your life and mean to obey it once you know what it is? What should you do? Many pastors will tell you "Try harder!" They’ll challenge your sincerity; they’ll demand more Bible-reading, more prayer, more meditation, and maybe more listening to them!
But when you do all these things, you still don’t know what the Lord wants you to do. What’s wrong?
Your thinking.
You know God has a will for your life and that you can find it. But you don’t know where to look for it!
This is what the sermons are about: where to look for God’s will.
Tonight’s sermon is mostly negative—Where you won’t find God’s will. Tomorrow’s is more positive—Where you will find it.
GOD’S WILL—GENERAL AND PARTICULAR
On some issues, it is very easy to find God’s will for your life. It may not be easy to obey His will, but there’s no doubt what He wants you to do.
Does the Lord want you to murder, commit adultery, take His name in vain, worship idols or covet your neighbor’s donkey? See the 10 Commandments and you’ll know God’s will on these things.
But what about other things?
Does God want you to marry? And—if He does—whom does He want you to marry and when? Does the Lord want you to attend college or get a job or both? Does He want you to be a carpenter, a computer programmer or something else? Does God want you to stay in the Bay Area or move to Miami? And what about the ministry? Is He calling you to be a pastor or missionary? Or does He want you to stay in your occupation and serve Him there?
The questions are not trivial: whom you marry, what you do for a living and where you live will greatly affect your life-- for good or bad.
The Bible has a lot to say about marriage, career, and so on, but it does not answer any of the questions directly.
It tells you that "marriage is good", but it doesn’t tell you to marry Jennifer on May 10, 2003. It tells you a man should work, but it doesn’t tell you what job to take.
So, how do you find God’s will on these matters?
THE MYSTICAL APPROACH
Many sincere believers take the mystical approach. They don’t call it, mystical, but that’s what it is: a way of making decisions based on mysterious things like warm feelings, an inner voice, peace after prayer, open doors, signs, and—most of all—feeling led by the Spirit.
Let me give you two or three examples. They may sound silly—but they’re not! Millions of good people live this way.
Jason is a 24 year old engineer who wants to get married. His girlfriend is Becky, a 22 year old teacher. Jason and Becky are both Christians and very much in love. Their friends all think they’d make a wonderful couple.
But Jason doesn’t want to mess up here. He knows that God has one woman for him—and that if he misses her, he’s sure to be unhappy for the rest of his life.
For months he prays about it and begs the Lord to reveal His perfect wil. On Tuesday night, after prayer, he feels a sense of relief—it seems that God is about to tell him what he wants to know.
The next morning, Jason gets up and opens his Bible to that day’s reading, Genesis 24. When he gets down to v. 51, he reads,
"Here is Rebekah before you;
take her and go".
God has come through for Jason! If Genesis 24:51 says "Take Rebekah", he knows it is the Lord’s will to marry Becky.
Tom is a 45 year old salesman with a wife, three kids, and a good job in San Jose. One day he gets a call from company headquarters in Detroit. They offer him a management position and a much better salary. To take it, though, he has to move to Michigan.
He talks it over with his wife and kids and—though they’re not enthusiastic about leaving California, they’re willing to if it’s what the Lord wants for them.
Every night the family prays about it. But after three weeks, God has not made it plain to them what they should do. Tom is worried. If God is not in the move to Detroit, the family is sure to suffer for it. The kids who have made good friends in San Jose might make bad ones back east—and then, who knows what will become of them?
Tom and his family cannot make the decision. So, one night, in family prayer, Tom says, "Lord, You know we want to do your will. If you want us to move to Detroit show us a sign.
While he’s praying the phone rings. They don’t answer it, of course, but later they check their voice mail and it’s the real estate agent telling them she can get $50,000 more for their house than she expected.
The sign has been given. It’s off to Michigan for Tom, his wife, and the kids.
Gary and Doug are roommates at seminary and both are committed to going where God wants them to go—whatever the cost.
One day at chapel an old missionary from the Middle East makes a moving plea for young men to preach the Gospel to the Muslim world. Right then and there, Doug and Gary feel the call. After graduation both apply to a mission agency and are both turned down. They try other mission boards, but nobody wants them. Seeing the closed door, Gary takes a pastorate in St. Louis, Missouri, where he marries, has two kids, and serves the Lord very well for five years.
But what about Doug? He’s not given up on the mission just yet. To make a living, he works at a bookstore, and keeps on applying. Finally, Egyptians for Christ calls him and says they’ve placed in Cairo and he ships out in two weeks. Doug is overjoyed at the prospect of winning Muslims to Christ.
But then he remembers his friend, Gary and wonders why he settled for God’s…second best.
Doug and Gary, Tom, and Jason have all taken the mystical approach to finding God’s will. For Gary, it was a closed door, for Doug, it was an open door, for Tom it was a sign (a fleece, if you know what I mean), and for Jason, it was a sense of peace and a random verse from the Bible that showed them God’s Will for their lives.
APPRECIATION
There’s something to be said for Doug, Gary, Tom, Jason—and people who think their way.
CRITQUE
Although Jason, Tom, Gary, and Doug are good men, the methods they used to find God’s will are both unwise and dangerous.
Their doctrinal mistake lay in thinking that God has two wills for their lives and two ways of revealing His wishes.
They all believe in the Bible and where it speaks to them, they listen. But what about the areas in which it doesn’t have anything to say? For these, they fall back on something else.
It might be a feeling, a sense of peace, an inner voice, a strong impression and so on. Respected teachers believe in these things, men like Watchman Nee, Bill Gothard, Church Swindoll, Richard J. Foster, Dallas Willard, Paul Tournier, and Peter Masters, the current pastor of Spurgeon’s old church.
The men are not equally wrong-headed. Peter Masters, for example, is far more trustworthy than Bill Gothard is. But, overlooking their very real differences, each one of them believes that God has two wills and two ways of making them known.
The first is the Bible—and that’s true. The mistake is on the other way. J.I. Packer says,
"Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially an
inward prompting by the Holy Spirit apart from the
Written Word.
No one denies the leading of the Holy Spirit. But what does He lead us with—the Bible alone or the Bible and other things?
II Timothy 3:15-17 teaches that the Bible all by itself makes a sinner "Wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ" and "Equips the man of God for every good work".
But—you say—if it’s the Bible alone that leads us, what does the Holy Spirit do? That’s easy: He does four things:
One last thing and we’ll be done: If the Bible is totally trustworthy, then these others things—feelings of peace, strong impulses and so on, are dreadfully unreliable.
If you’re honest with yourself, you have to admit that your feelings have led you astray time after time after time. You felt led by the Spirit, but, in fact, you were misled by your emotions.
If impulses, signs, feelings, and so on have messed you up so often in the past, why do you still trust them?
Just read the Bible, pray for understanding, and stay within its boundaries—and you’ll still make mistakes—but you’ll also glorify God, grow in grace, and bless others.
If you want to know God’s will for your life, you can. But not by opening the Bible at random, not by looking for open doors, not by putting out the fleece, and not by acting on what you feel.
"The entrance of Thy Word gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple".
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