What is God's Will for My Life?

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We don’t have too much time tonight but my intention is for us to get through 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 and our goal is really to answer just 1 question. It is a question that I have heard in a number of different ways over my almost 10 years of ministry and it is a question that has been asked by young and old, single and married, middle school student to college student, it is a question that nags at all. What do you think that question is? Here’s the question and I’ll put it out in a couple of different ways because I’m sure at some point you have all asked yourself this very question: What is God’s Will for my life? What does God want me to do? Why does God have me here? Where does God want me to go? Have you asked this question before? I think deep down we all have because we as Christians want to know what we’re supposed to do now. So, really tonight I am talking just to Christians because Paul is addressing Christians in this letter. Last week we talked about how we as Christians are to endure persecution and how we can face what comes with unwavering joy because the One that we worship never changes. Tonight we will look at what we should be doing in the good times and the bad times and everything in between. So, because Stephen Arnold will be joining us at 7, I’m just going to dive right into 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12. Paul writes:

1 Thessalonians 4:1–12 ESV

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

The Types of God’s Will

Let’s talk about God’s will. First off, what is it? What do we mean when we talk about the will of God? What I want us to talk about first are about how there are different types of God’s will. The Bible does not speak of just 1 blanket statement when it comes to the will of God. Sometimes we use the phrase “the will of God” and the interpretation of that is so broad that we really aren’t saying much of anything. So, when we see a reference to God’s will in Scripture, we should inquire as to what is meant in that statement. In verse 3, Paul says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” What does that verse teach us in regards to God’s will for our lives? While there are a variety of different elements in reference to God’s will, for time’s sake, we will bring it down to the 2 that I believe are most prevalent in Scripture. There is God’s decretive will and God’s preceptive will. What do we mean by the decretive will of God? This is God’s sovereign will, it is the will which states that all that God intends to happen will happen. When God created the world in Genesis 1, He didn’t ask for light to happen and the light had to think about it. God willed creation and it happened. When we are saved, it is by God’s decretive will. All that belong to God will come to Him because it is God’s will that they are saved. You could call this will, “God’s particular determination.” This will is God’s overarching sovereignty. Robert Letham puts it like this, “The ultimate destiny of the universe, the earth, its inhabitants, and the church is all to work out in line with the eternal plan of God.” What do we mean then by God’s preceptive will? This is the will that I believe is being talked about in the ten commandments and in what we have read tonight. God’s preceptive will is God’s commandments revealed to us. It is His desire for us to live in a way that is holy and right to Him. Now obviously God’s preceptive and decretive will are not separate from one another but the preceptive springs from the decretive. God’s decretive will is for the Law to be written on the hearts of all people and it is because God has sovereignly ordained that to happen. There is not a single person in the world that is ignorant of who God is because God in His decretive will has sovereignly revealed Himself to every single man and woman on the face of the planet. There are no Atheists in hell. No one is out of Hell based on pure ignorance because the law is written on the hearts of all people. God’s preceptive will is that we would act accordingly to His decretive will. R.C. Sproul said, “The preceptive will of God relates to the revealed commandments of God’s published law. When God commands us not to steal, this decree does not carry with it the immediate necessity of consequence. Where it was not possible for the light to refuse to shine in creation, it is possible for us to refuse to obey this command.” What does all of this mean for us then tonight? I know that there were a lot of decent sized theology words thrown around there but what does it all come down to for us? I think we narrow it down to this: What is God’s desire for how we live as Christians? How does God want us to live in this fallen world? Paul narrows it down to one word and we have already said it: Sanctification. God’s greatest desire and will for His people is that we would be holy so let’s break that down based off of what Paul writes for us in 1 Thessalonians 4.

God Will’s us to be Holy

In the first 2 verses of chapter 4, Paul indicates that he is about to bring this letter to a close and he asks the Thessalonians to basically just keep doing what they’ve been doing. To recap what that is exactly, we’d have to go back and re-read the first 3 chapters. They’ve received the Word of the Lord and they are living faithfully but Paul does not tell them to just stop there. In terms of what we do for Christ on this earth, the only finish line is in Heaven. You don’t get to stop living sanctified lives until your sanctification is completed in Heaven. Remember what I said a few weeks ago, the Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint. It’s those that persevere to the end that are saved not those that give up at the first sign of trouble. Real faith is a staying faith. Real faith endures to the end. True, saving faith always crosses the finish line. Everyone that is supposed to be in Heaven is going to be there. Before we cross that finish line though, Paul gives us the instruction as to what we are to do between now and then. He directly equates the will of God for your life and for my life with sanctification. God’s great desire is for all of His people to bear the image of His Son and this is accomplished through sanctification. One thing I want you to notice is what comes immediately after Paul’s statement on sanctification. He immediately launches into a statement on sexual immorality. He talks about the passion that control the body, he really covers the whole spread in regards to sexual sin. In verse 7 he says, “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” Now I bring this up because what Paul is doing is he is using the example of sexual sin to highlight the call for holiness. You guys are teenagers so we aren’t going to pretend that you aren’t aware of these things. I think Paul stresses this for 2 reasons: the first is that everyone is aware of sexuality. It is easy to point to those practices and have some image spring into the minds of the listener, whether good or bad. The second reason is because Paul is writing to a church in a major city within the Roman empire, an empire that cared very little about abstaining from sexual immorality. The Roman and Gentile culture of that time embraced sex almost anyway that they could get it. The relationships that Christians had was completely foreign in a 1st century Roman world. Kevin DeYoung summarized it like this: “Sexual morality in the Roman Empire was permissive, based on social status, and sexual desire could be fulfilled in a myriad of ways. Sexual morality under the triumph of Christianity was austere, based on gender, and sexual desire could be fulfilled in only one way.” I think it’s almost like Paul saying, “Holiness extends into every aspect of your life. That is God’s will for you and if you are wondering what that may look like practically, look at how you approach sexual sin.” If you are a Christian, you are going to approach your life different. You’re going to look at sex different than the world does because you will grow to see it as something given from God and not just something that we fall into without a care in the world. If you are a Christian you are not enslaved to sin any longer. That doesn’t mean that you don’t sometimes struggle with sin but you no longer are mastered by it. Let me encourage you with this, if you are feeling like you are trapped in some sin, there is always a way out. Christ has secured the victory over all sin and He passes His victory to us. You are going to be at war with the flesh for as long as you are in this body. But if you are a Christian and you find yourself struggling and battling sin, you are on the right track. Why do I say that? Because the unregenerate person, the unsaved man or woman, does not put up any fight against sin because they don’t care. Natural man does not struggle with sin because they love sin. Paul Washer said, “Believers should not despair about the battle they wage or their frequent need of repentance as they struggle against sin. The reality of such a struggle is a mark of true conversion. The false convert—the hypocrite—knows no such battle. God does not promise His presence to the one who is perfect, but to the one whose life is marked by a broken and contrite spirit and who trembles at His word.” St. Augustine compares our lives like that of 2 fighters doing battle in the middle of the coliseum: “Here we are with people who have been justified from their sins. We can’t deny it. There remains, however, the struggle with the flesh, there remains the struggle with the world, there remains the struggle with the devil. When you are struggling, you sometimes hit, sometimes you get hit; sometimes you win, sometimes you’re done for; it remains to be seen how you leave the stadium.” What is the worst thing for a Christian to do when they find themselves in this battle with sin? It’s to rely on themselves and to give up fighting. Every time we come to something that appears to be sinful, we need to ask ourselves how God can be glorified in this action. When we come to sin we need to ask if we can stomach the fact that we are embracing that which Christ died to save us from. If you are a Christian that is in this great war with the flesh, keep fighting because God’s desire for your life is that you will be holy. What are some practical ways that we can grow in our sanctification? Let’s look again to verses 9-12 and then we will wrap up.

Sanctification in Action

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

1 Thessalonians 4:9–12 ESV

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Here we see examples of sanctification in action. It’s pretty similar to other statements that Paul has made earlier in the letter and it’s also similar to various other parts in Scripture. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they have received the Word of God and that Christ has commanded His people to love one another. The greater we love our God, the greater we will love our neighbor because we will see the joy in doing what God has commanded us and one of the most important commands that He has given to us is that we would love our neighbor and pray for those that persecute us. Again in verse 10 we see Paul commend the believers but he encourages them to not just stop with where they are at. They aren’t to become comfortable and complacent. The more comfortable they become, the more likely they are to hit the breaks. We need to always be mindful of the words of Christ in Revelation 2:2-4 to the church in Ephesus.

Revelation 2:2–4 (ESV)

“ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Think back to the church of Ephesus as we saw it in the book of Acts. This church was firing on all cylinders. They were go, go, go. They were full of Godly people that changed the world with the Gospel. Christ says, you were doing really well but you don’t love and serve me like you used to. Just think of the list of Pastors that graced that church: Paul, Timothy, and the apostle John just to name 3 of them that we know of. Yet not even 50 years have passed between Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and Christ’s warning to the Ephesians. This should wake us up a little. This is a take heed lest we fall moment. This is a reminder that none of us have yet to have arrived to perfection. This is a wake up call for the church. The reason that so many family businesses fail within 3-5 generations is because the grandkids don’t have the same drive and passion as their fathers. If you want to endure to the end, don’t pump the brakes. Keep moving forward and don’t think, “I’ve done everything that I can possibly do in the name of Jesus.” If you want to grow in your sanctification, there needs to actually be growth and effort on your part. We need Godly pastors in our lives, Godly leaders that are like Paul and urge us to keep moving forward. Our brothers and sisters in the faith, the world, cannot afford to have us slow down. The answer to the world’s problems are not a quiet church. The answers to the worlds issues are not for believers to sit down and be silent and just let bygones be bygones. In all that we do, we need to be a representation of the God that saved us. This is what Paul is getting at in the last few verses that we looked at. He says that we are to live quietly, mind our own affairs, work with our hands so that we may walk properly before outsiders. Now I don’t believe that Paul is saying that we are to just keep to ourselves but I think that he is emphasizing that we are to live Godly lives. We are to live peaceful lives, we are to live lives that are tranquil in the eyes of the world, lives of contentment almost. John Calvin wrote, “This, therefore, is the best means of a tranquil life, when every one, intent upon the duties of his own calling, discharges those duties which are enjoined upon him by the Lord, and devotes himself to these things: while the husbandman employs himself in rural labours, the workman carries on his occupation, and in this way every one keeps within his own limits. So soon as men turn aside from this, everything is thrown into confusion and disorder. He does not mean, however, that every one shall mind his own business in such a way as that each one should live apart, having no care for others, but has merely in view to correct an idle levity, which makes men noisy bustlers in public, who ought to lead a quiet life in their own houses.” It’s easy to fall into sin when you fall into the wrong crowd. Paul is instructing the Thessalonians to make sure they stay active and to make sure they stay vigilant where they’re at. As we are going to see later on 2 Thessalonians 3, there were quite a few believers in the church that quit their jobs because they thought Christ’s return was only a moment or 2 away. Even here in the first letter Paul is encouraging them to go about their business but to go about it in a way that exalts Christ and helps them in their sanctification. It is the will of God that we as Christians live a certain way so before we close in prayer, I want to ask you if you are living a life that is pleasing to God? Are you walking in the will of God? Are you pursuing sanctification and is what you are doing now what God wants you to do. If you are waiting for a big neon sign from Heaven to tell you what you are supposed to do with your life, might I recommend that before you look for something that probably won’t come, that you look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3 first. The will of God for your life is actually quite simple and it can be summarized in 1-2 words: sanctification and holiness. How are you living your life right now? What is it that makes up your priorities? If you are a Christian, the question you should be asking right now is not, “What will God do for me next?” The question you should be asking is, “What should I be doing for God right now? And what should I be doing until Christ returns?” Next week we are going to finally get to that great subject: the Second Coming of Christ. We’ll look at what that return will look like, what we can do to prepare for that day, and what our response should be now to His arrival. Let’s pray together.