Knowing the Will of God
“Strengthen yourselves so that you will live here on earth DOING WHAT GOD WANTS, not the evil things people want.” – I Pet 4:2
Introduction:
- Does God SPEAK to people today?
- Does God CARE about what I am going through in my daily life?
- Does God have a MASTER PLAN for each individual?
- How can I find God’s will for my life?
- How can I learn to HEAR THE VOICE of God?
- Who to marry, career move, family future… YES God does speak
- Believers are NOT victims of chance daily hoping that our luck doesn’t run out
- We walk in the providence (divine intervention of God in our life) of God
- People have different concepts of knowing the will of God:
- Like finding a hidden treasure…as you get closer you will get “warmer” or “hot” when we find it
- Others have it as something boring and undesirable… like a diet
- Every diet takes out all the “good stuff”… DIE is in diet
- That is how some people see God and His will for our lives
- Both these are incorrect as the Bible says, in Is 55: “go out in joy and be led forth in peace”
- There is JOY and PEACE in doing the will of God
- The most miserable person is the one who knows God’s will, but does not do it
- The reason God wants to reveal His will to you is because you are a friend of God – “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father.” - Jn 15:15
- When you are friends in someone, you confide in them – YET a friend will also tell you the truth, “a true friend will stab you on the front not the back”
- Friends tell and keep secrets - Psalms 25:14 says, “the secret of the Lord is those who fear Him”
- Jesus’ prayer, “…your will be done…” also in the Lord’s Prayer, “…your will be done…”
- So, if we want to be God’s friend, we need to walk in His will and plan for our life.
- A believer will not only want to KNOW the will of God, but also WALK in His will
- Ps 40:8 - “My God, I want to do what you want. Your teachings are in my heart."
- So, how do I know the will of God… not an easy question as we have to determine which is the word of God
- How to know the WILL of GOD? This is not an easy question…
- EXAMPLE: we don’t hear the voice of God each morning as our TO DO LIST for the day or secret service message, which will self-destruct after communicated…
- People who keep saying regularly, “God spoke to me today…” needs to be understood in the right manner…
- It is not an audible voice of God, but:
- By studying the Scripture,
- Discerning the voice of God and then
- Taking steps of faith towards what the Lord says without question
- “the steps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord” and “the just shall live by faith”
- We do NOT live by feelings… song “feelings nothing more than feelings…” a dumb song, but many believers live like that only by what their feelings tell them to do.
- God does speak and show us His will daily…
- Some are praying to God for His will, but HOLD THE ANSWER IN THEIR HANDS… not following a map you are holding…
- David says, “teach me to DO your will…” not understand it to make sense to me -
- Some people KNOW what God’s will is, but don’t do it…
- They have a “selective hearing” problem…
- Do you know something as Gods’ will, but you are not doing it?
- “Obedience to revealed truth grantees guidance to matters unrevealed”
- If we KNOW the will of God and don’t DO it, we are purposely shutting down our communication with God
- We need to know the PREREQUISITES and PRINCIPLES for guidance, but before that some absolutes that God’s Word tells us about His will for our life.
- ONE - I Tim 2:4, “God wants all people to be saved” – we need to be a believer before knowing the will of God
- The Bible is NOT a magical book to find answers, it is a book for believers
- The Bible may be inspirational and have poetical content, but that is not why it is written
- TWO – God wants us to be filled with the Holy Spirit – Ehp 5: “God’s will is that we are daily filled with the Spirit” NOT feelings but like fuel for a car…
- When is the last time you asked God to fill you with the Spirit?
- THREE – have an attitude of gratitude – I Thess 5: “in everything give thanks…” say THANK YOU in all circumstances…. “Stormy seas and through still waters”
- We are not giving thanks FOR our problems, but INSPITE of our problems, because God is in control of everything we are going through…
- FOUR – live a pure life – I Thess 4:3 – “God wants you to be holy and to stay away from sexual sins.” – God wants us to live a sanctified life
- There is no “living together” in God’s will… marriage is not test driving like a car… marriage is a commitment regardless of your partner…
- People say, “God told them to live together…”
- Statistics say that 8 out of 10 people who “practiced” marriage ended in divorce…
- Living together is just getting all benefits without any commitment…
- Living together is NOT “trial of marriage”, but a “training for divorce”
- Heb 13:4 – “Marriage should be honored by everyone, and husband and wife should keep their marriage pure. God will judge as guilty those who take part in sexual sins.”
- A half-hearted commitment is not acceptable to God – there is no low-fat and decaf stuff in heaven…
- There are some Decaf believers, but when you read the Word of God, you will read about “full-fat” and “pure” stuff…
- Jesus hates half-heartedness…commit yourself to Him completely before enjoying His benefits for your life and future.
- There are things that require FULL COMMITMENT and without that it doesn’t make sense. For example, you can’t “cross half a river” you can’t “dive almost all the way into a pool” similarly you can’t “almost be saved”
- Our choices make the difference for our future – God wants us to me completely committed to our walk with God
- Rom 12:1-2 – “So brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him. Your offering must be only for God and pleasing to him, which is the spiritual way for you to worship. 2 Do not be shaped by this world; instead be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.”
- The Pre-requisites of knowing God’s Perfect Will for us:
- The KJV states with, “Therefore…” whenever that word is there in the Bible you have to find out “what is it there for?”
- This word is always there to tell us that it is in continuation with what he has already been talking about…
- Paul is talking previously about all the Lord has done for believers and COMMANDING them to present themselves whole-heartedly to God
- In the Message Bible it reads, “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
- A Living Sacrifice
- It is a living sacrifice NOT a dead sacrifice – showing that like Isaac was willing to be sacrificed, so should we do it.
- Sometimes we give it to God, but then take it back – after prayer we take back our request
- Paul said present your Body including :
- MIND – Phil 4:8-9 – “Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.”
- TONGUE: your words – Jas 3:3-6 – “A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.”- So THINK T- is it TRUE? H – is it HELPFUL? I- is it INSPIRING? N- is it NECESSARY? K- is it KIND? Before you speak…
- Hands and feet – Prov 6:16-19 – “Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.”
- This shows us that a half hearted commitment is totally illogical
- We can’t be un-carbonated Christians – like a flat Coke
- As we grow older our commitment also needs to increase… it is logical
Don’t Conform to this World
- “don’t be conformed to this world”
- We cannot let this world squeeze you into its mold… don’t be ashamed of Biblical Principles…
- The world says to those with marital issues… “dump her as there are other fish in the sea”
- There is nothing called, “irreconcilable differences” which causes people to give up on each other… we have had those differences for 24 years
- There are things that never can be sorted out, but we choose to live with each other…
- You can follow the “cool Christian dude... and leave you unbelieving husband”
- God’s Will is always Good
God’s will is always GOOD… “good and acceptable will of God”
- Ps 34:8 – “Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see— how good God is.”
- Ps 84:11b – “He does not hold back anything good from those whose lives are innocent.”
- When God says NO it means NO
- Our definition of GOOD (easy, fun, happy, pain-free) is different than that of God (productive, character-forming and eternally focused)
