Knowing God's Will

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, happy Sunday to you and welcome to our worship service. It’s good to see you all here.

I have a few announcements I’d like to highlight from your bulletins.

The men’s group will not be meeting tonight due to the holiday. Those meetings will resume next week.

The church office will be closed tomorrow, but we will be having our church council meeting. If you’re on the council, please try to attend.

You’ll see a list of our church deacons in your bulletins. Steve Corbin is our new chair. Vonda Hutchinson is our vice-chair. We’ll be assigning each of you a deacon team in the coming weeks, so watch your mailbox for a letter from your deacons. Thanks to each of you for serving your church, and please be in prayer for all of them.

We are still collecting items for Stump’s WRE program. You can leave those in Randal’s Sunday school classroom or see Della.

And this month’s items for Operation Christmas Child are arts and crafts, coloring books, Crayons, and the like. You can leave those in our Shoebox room down the hall.

(Update on Linda Harris)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray:

Our heavenly Father, we come to you this day with the deepest thanks. Each day You provide for us in ways we can’t even imagine. Each day You protect us in ways we can’t even see. Each day you unfold Your divine will to lead us forward into eternity with you. May we learn in every circumstance to trust in Your leading, and we pray for the wisdom to know when and how You speak. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.

Sermon

The most common question we ask God is probably the simplest, and it’s just one word — Why? Why did You let this happen? Why won’t You let this happen? Why does it have to be this way? It’s an important question — Why? And it’s important that you realize God’s not afraid of you asking it. There are people who say you should never question God, and I appreciate the thinking behind that. But God is not afraid of your questions. He doesn’t want you keeping anything from Him, and He already knows whatever you’re trying to hide. That includes your disappointments and aggravations about how He’s working or not working in your life. So go ahead, ask Him your questions. But you better be prepared to hear His answers, because experience has taught me that very often God’s answers won’t be what you think they’ll be.

At the heart of all those times we ask God why is wanting to know the reasons for what He does. That’s when we get into the territory of mystery, because then we’re wading into God’s will. If Why, God? is the most common spiritual question we ask as Christians, What’s Your will for me, God? has to be a close second.

“What’s Your will for my life, Father?” Or, “What’s your will for me in this particular situation?”

Those are fantastic questions. God rejoices when He hears you asking something like that, because it means you’re searching out His perfect wisdom instead of your own imperfect wisdom. It means you’re relying on Him instead of yourself. It means you’re serious about your faith. You want to do what your Lord wants you to do.

But a lot of times it seems like God is stingy with His answers. We ask Him what His will is about something, but things don’t seem to get any clearer at all. What’s going on there? Why does God sometimes seem so quiet when we need Him to be talking the most? How can we know God’s will for our lives and for the circumstances of our lives?

Like so many other things, when it comes to knowing God’s will we have to pay careful attention to what the Bible says. And the Bible is clear that there are a lot of things about God that we can know, but there are a lot of things about Him that we’ll never be able to fully understand.

I’ll give you an example. In Ephesians 5:1, Paul tells us as believers to “be imitators of God … ”. Well, the only way we can imitate God is if there are certain things about God that we have too, just in a smaller and less perfect way. God is perfectly holy. He calls His children to be holy as well. God is perfectly loving. He says we have to be loving too. The same is true of goodness and righteousness and wisdom. God is all of those things perfectly, and so we should ask Him to increase those things in our lives too.

But God also possesses qualities that we don’t have at all. He’s omnipotent — God knows every possible thing. We don’t, and we can’t. God is perfect, so He can’t change. But we’re changing all the time because we’re imperfect. He’s everywhere at once. We can only be in one place. Everything in creation needs God to keep going, but God isn’t dependent on anything. God only needs Himself.

So even though we can share some of God’s own qualities (and think about that for a minute, and how special that makes you), there are a lot of other qualities God possesses that we can’t. Because of that, there will always be more things you can’t know about your Heavenly Father than you can. And it has to be that way, because a God you can fully understand wouldn’t be a God worthy of your worship.

That’s the one thing you have to keep in mind when it comes to asking the question of what God’s will is. This morning we’re going to look at that question through three passages of scripture that talk about God’s will in three different ways — understanding God’s will, living God’s will, and walking in God’s will. We’ll start with the first one, understanding God’s will, and we’ll do that by turning to Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29. Turn there with me now, just a single verse, but one that says much about what God’s will means and what it doesn’t.

Moses is speaking here, and he says this:

Whenever we talk about God’s will and start struggling over what that is for our lives, this verse is the first place to start. And one of the most important things about this verse is where it’s located, here in the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy means “second law.” This book is a kind of summary of the Law that God gave to Moses, and at the beginning of this chapter God renews his covenant with Israel. Back in verse 9, God gives the people this warning: “Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.”

“This is how I want you to live,” God says. “These are My rules, and it’s your choice to obey them or not. Follow them, and you’ll prosper. Ignore them, and you’ll perish.”

Then an amazing thing happens. Even though God says it’s Israel’s choice to obey His laws or not, He knows what the people will choose, and from verses 22-28 He speaks about a future generation who will turn their backs on Him and suffer greatly as punishment. God says His anger will be great, and He’ll bring about all the curses written in the Book of the Law.

You can imagine the look of shock on the faces of all those people gathered there with Moses. You can imagine the questions they had. How can God destroy the very land He gave us? How will this happen? How can He allow our children to grow so wicked?

The answer Moses gives them is verse 29. He says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

In other words, talking about God’s will means understanding that there are two different kinds of God’s will. There’s God’s hidden will, which Moses refers to as “the secret things”, and there’s God’s revealed will, which Moses says “belongs to us and our children forever.”

Now, what’s the difference between those?

God’s hidden will refers to the fact that God will accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish, and nothing can stop it. Not the devil, and not our own free choice. One example of that is the crucifixion. God willed that Christ would die on a cross in Jerusalem on a particular day in a particular year, and there was nothing that could stop that from happening. God’s hidden will cannot be resisted. It’s the way that history and the future must unfold in order for God’s perfect plan of redemption and renewal to be carried out.

When the Israelites hear what Moses says and starts asking things like when God will do this and why God will do it and how, what they’re really asking is to know God’s hidden will. And guess what? We can’t know that. God’s reasons are God’s reasons. Which means — and I know this is tough to hear because it’s tough for me to say — when we ask God about our future in this life, when we ask Him why He won’t do this or why He allows that, He says to us, “That’s none of your business. I have My reasons, but they’re reasons you’ll never understand on your side of heaven. That’s why they’re hidden.”

And even as Christians, even as people of faith and devotion, we hear that and think on some level, “Wait a minute. That’s not fair. What do You mean it’s none of my business what happens to me? What do You mean it’s none of my business how You’re working things out in my life, or why You let this thing that’s hurt me happen, or why You won’t fix it? What do you mean that I won’t understand? You should help me understand, God. This is my life. Of course it’s my business. It’s my future. It’s my circumstances.”

That’s what you think, isn’t it? I know it is, because you’re human. That’s how I think too. But we’re both wrong. Your life is not yours. Neither is your future or your circumstances. All of that belongs to God.

In Romans 12:1, Paul writes that since God has shown you great mercy by the sacrifice of Christ as payment for your sins, God calls you to offer your own sacrifice to Him. Paul calls it a living sacrifice because it’s one you don’t offer just once, you offer it every day. And he calls it a sacrifice because you’re putting to death the control you think you’ve always had over your life. You’re handing all of that over to your Lord and Master. You’re saying to Him every day, “Everything I am, Jesus, everything I have, and everything I want, is yours. Do with it what You will.”

That’s the Christian life. People say the Christian life is loving God and loving each other and doing good, and that’s true, but at the heart of it all is surrendering — sacrificing — everything about you to Jesus. The entire Christian life is summed up in that one sentence Mary speaks to the servants just before Jesus turns the water into wine at Cana. Remember what she says? “Do whatever he tells you.” That’s it. That’s everything. No questions, no hesitation. Just hear, and do.

If you do that, you’re going to be okay with God’s hidden will. It won’t matter that you have questions that go unanswered, because you understand that the One who’s really in control of your life has all the answers. And if God has the answers, you don’t need them.

But remember, God’s hidden will is only half of the story. There’s also God’s revealed will. Moses says here that “the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever.”

The hidden will of God can’t be resisted; it’s going to happen no matter what any of us do. But the revealed will of God is different. Not only can that be resisted, we do it all the time. And what is the revealed will of God? It’s the book that better be in your hands right now. It’s the Bible.

When you’re asking how you can know the will of God for your life, you need to figure out which of God’s wills you mean. Because if you’re talking about God’s hidden will, you have to understand it’s hidden. That’s His to know, not yours.

But if you’re struggling with God’s will about what to do in a particular situation, that’s a different story. You can’t read God’s mind, but you can read God’s Word, and in these pages is everything you need to live life wisely and fruitfully. If you sincerely go to God and ask His will over something in your life, sometimes He’ll answer you in your prayers. Sometimes He’ll answer you through another believer. But most often, God will answer you in these pages as you read and study with that question in your mind. This Book is God’s revealed will for your life, which is why I’m always on you to be reading it. Because the more you know what this Book says, the more you’ll know what God’s will for your life is.

That’s how you understand God’s will — both parts, the hidden one that’s His alone, and the revealed one that He offers to you. But understanding it is just the first step. God says it’s not enough to understand His will, you also have to live in that will. And for that, we turn to the book of Proverbs, chapter 3. Very familiar verses. Solomon writes in verses 5-6 of chapter 3:

If you remember last week’s sermon, the first step in living a life of peace is what? It’s trust. Trusting that God has a plan and a purpose for you, and that His love will always protect and lift you up. Here’s that word again right at the beginning of this passage. God’s hidden will is kept from you because it’s beyond your ability to know, but it’s also kept from you because God wants you to learn how to trust Him.

God wants you to trust him more than you trust anything in your life, and that includes trusting Him more than you trust yourself and all those things you think you know. It’s the fundamental part of your religion. How can you do what Mary said at Cana — remember that? “Do whatever he tells you,” she said — how can you do whatever Christ tells you if you don’t trust that what he tells you is true, and right, and both for his own glory and your benefit?

Trust Him. The word trust in verse 5 means to confide in, and to set your hope and confidence on. It’s to rely on God’s wisdom, power, and goodness to direct your life. Trust in those things, which are complete, instead of your own understanding, which is incomplete. Lean on God, and what His will is, and on the power He has to steer your life where He wants it to go.

When ancient kings would come out of their palaces and appear in public, their advisors would be there with them. And as a sort of symbol of trust, the kings would physically lean on the advisors they depended on most. It’s the same picture here when Solomon says to not lean on your own understanding — on what you think you have or in what you think you know — because your understanding is limited. You don’t have the whole picture of your life from beginning to end and then all through eternity. You can’t see how something that happened to you years ago is going to connect with something that’s going to happen to you years from now. But God does. God sees it all. He’s working everything out. That’s why he says, “Lean on Me. Trust in Me.”

And again, going back to last week, you can’t trust God until you know God. Listen to Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23-24:

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me … ”

If you want to understand and know God’s will, you have to understand and know God. And how do you do that? Through reading His Word. Not by hearing me preach it once a week. Not by watching or listening to other people talk about it. But by you reading it so that God can talk to you.

That’s how you can do what verse 6 says, and acknowledge him in all your ways. The word acknowledge in the Hebrew doesn’t mean what we usually take it to mean. It’s not just to accept the fact that God is in control. It means to know God. To know His wisdom and power and goodness. Because if you know those things about Him, you’ll know that same wisdom and power and goodness will flow through your own life. All of your paths will be made straight.

What we have in these two verses is a picture of what your life is supposed to look like. It’s one huge circle that keeps going around and never ends. The more you know God, the more you trust Him. The more you trust Him, the more of your life you’ll give over to Him. The more of your life you give over to Him, the more He will direct your paths and make them straight. The more He makes your paths straight, the more you’ll trust Him, and back around the circle you go. That’s how your life is supposed to work. That’s how your life can work, if you surrender to God’s will instead of trying to cling to your own. That’s what it means to live in God’s will.

But there’s still one more step. You have to understand what God means by his will, and then you have to live in that understanding, but finally you have to learn how to walk in that understanding, how to move through your life with God’s will in mind. This is the toughest part of it all, but it’s also the most rewarding.

Turn with me one book back from Proverbs to the book of Psalms, chapter 119. This is the longest of the Psalms, but we’re only going to look at one verse, and that’s verse 105:

When you start understanding that inside this book, God’s Word, is His entire revealed will for your life, when you start understanding that all those questions you have about what God wants you to do about a certain situation or way of thinking is answered somewhere in those pages, two things happen.

One is that you realize all those times you thought He was being silent, God was instead ready to shout His answer to you if you just opened up your Bible and prayed — really prayed — that He would lead you to the passage of scripture you needed to read.

And the other is that you never, in any situation, need to feel like you’re stumbling around in the darkness not knowing where you are. Because this Book, which is God’s Word for you, will be a lamp that lights your way.

That lamp will direct you where you need to go. It will shine through all of your doubts and every one of your difficulties. It will comfort you in your fears and cradle you in your griefs. You ask God, “Father, what’s Your will for me?” God answers, “My will for you is right in these pages.”

I talked to someone this week who’s friend has a daughter, and this daughter is going through a very rough time. Her faith is just shattered by something that’s happened in her life, and she can’t understand why God would allow it. Everything’s just kind of upside down in her life. So this daughter is doing what a lot of Christians are doing now — she’s deconstructing her faith.

Do you know what deconstructing your faith means? It means you stop relying on what your Bible says about God and Christ and life and the world now and the world to come, and instead of having the Bible be the standard that your life goes by, you make your own self the judge. You decide which of the words in there you think are true and which you can just ignore.

So maybe even though the Bible says otherwise, you think God sends everyone to heaven and no one goes to hell, because that just feels right.

Maybe you think you’re going to heaven not because of Christ’s blood shed for you but because you’re a good person, because that just feels right.

You still call yourself a Christian, but you’re not anymore, because you’re deciding who God is and isn’t based on what you think instead of what the Bible says, and now you’re in darkness. There’s no light, because you’ve just tossed your light away. The Bible’s no longer God’s revealed word for you, it’s just a book like any other. You’re so broken up about the fact you can’t see the part of God’s will that he says has to be hidden from you that now you’re going to ignore the part of God’s will He says you can absolutely and completely know.

But if you cling to His Word, and if you see God’s word as His comfort and instruction for anything you’re going through, then the Bible is going to cut right through whatever darkness you’re facing. This book is going to be a light to your path so that you can walk in that will.

And what does a light do? It does two things.

First, a light shows you the way you should go. That’s obvious, right? It shows you the correct path to take both rightly — meaning in a way that you can absolutely know — and clearly — meaning the right path will be shown to you in a way that will leave no doubt.

But also second, that light also lets you see any danger that might be in your way. It shows you the way to go but also the things to avoid while you’re going there. Things that might trip you up. Things that might hurt you. Things you need to watch out for.

Having a light on your path doesn’t only show the way to go, it also brings to light dangers that you wouldn’t otherwise see.

But I want you to notice something important here. In Psalm 119:105, where is that lamp set? It’s set at your feet, isn’t it?

Now, I want you to picture something. Picture yourself surrounded by darkness. You’re trying to get from one end of that darkness to the other, and you don’t know the way. But you’re given a lamp to help you. Where are you going to hold that lamp? You’re going to hold it up high, aren’t you? That’s the natural choice. Because if you hold that lamp up high, you’re going to be able to see what’s around you.

But because your lamp is up here, you’re not going to be able to see where you’re stepping. So you could be looking on ahead to where the light is, but your next step could be into a hole that can kill you.

That’s exactly why God says His Word, His revealed will for you that’s laid out from Genesis to Revelation, the part of His plan for you that you can know, is a lamp that’s at your feet. But here’s where we struggle, because if that lamp’s at your feet, then you only have just enough light to know what your next step should be, and nothing more. That’s it, just one single step. After that, all you see is more darkness. And why would God make it like that? Again — trust.

God says, “I know a lamp at your feet doesn’t show you much. It’s just enough light to tell you where to take your next step. But isn’t your next step all you need to know? Don’t worry about what’s in that darkness ahead and around you. I’m taking care of that. I’m working there, and I’m taking care of you. All you need to worry about it going where I show you to go. All you need to worry about is that next step, and I’ll show you exactly where to take it. And once you take that step, I’ll show you the next one. And the next one. And that’s the way I want it to be, because if you take enough of those single steps with My lamp at your feet, you’ll finally start trusting me. That’s all I want, and it’s all you need.”

It is a good and noble and holy thing to want to know what God’s will for you is. Just remember that in His goodness and grace, He has a secret plan for your life that is none of your business. You wouldn’t understand that even if He told you. But God also has a plan for your life that you can absolutely know, but you have to put in the effort. You have to be in prayer, and you absolutely have to read your Bible. Start in the Psalms and Proverbs. Start in the gospels. Sink yourself into His Word, and God will lead you and direct your path.

It’s all about faith. All about trust. Because those things are what leads to a relationship, and that’s what real Christianity is. It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship between the Creator and Sustainer of everything. And if you’re ready to start that relationship, or renew that relationship, or if you’d like to join this church in that relationship, I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father there are so many parts of the Christian life that we struggle with not because You are untrustworthy, but because we are. Time and again You prove Yourself worthy of our faith, our hope, and our confidence. Time and again You say to us, “Just trust me. Let go of your life and trust Me.” This morning, Father, we pray that You give us the strength to do just that. And how wonderful it is to know that You in Your perfection order our lives instead of trying to do it ourselves in our imperfection. Let us look to You to prepare our futures for Your glory, and let us each day turn to Your Word for guidance and direction in our daily lives. For it’s in Christ’s name we pray, Amen.