God's Will, Part 11
Notes
Transcript
Handout
This session we will continue to look at the Greek word “thélēma,” with one of the three persons of the Trinity as the direct object or the subject in the Gospels.
Turn to Romans 1:8-15 .
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you
10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—
12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.
14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
What does Paul see as God’s will in this passage?
Paul sees it as going to Rome and ministering to the saints.
Has Paul succeeded in this pursuit of God’s will?
No, not on his timetable. Looking back, we see that God’s will was fulfilled in Paul going to Rome. It did not go as he had planned. He was arrested in Jerusalem, in prison there for three years, and then shipped to Rome. In the process, he was shipwrecked and stranded on an Island. I am sure if you had asked Paul how he would get to Rome by God’s will, he would not have laid out this kind of journey.
We, like Paul, are often seeking the will of God. However, his will is not often fulfilled as we would expect it to be. The challenge is to trust God in the process of his will being worked out in our lives. This will is often worked out through the trials we walk through.
This brings us to Romans 11:33-36 .
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
God does not think like us, nor is he subject to our will. Without his intervention, we would not know his will.
Why do you think it is important to know these things?
These truths hedge us against our predisposition to entitlement in knowing God’s will. It reminds us that we are creatures, i.e. created beings subject to limitations and not entitled to even knowing God. Yet God, in his grace, has made himself known, and not in the way expected, according to 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 .
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
How do we know the will of God?
We know his will through his Spirit, which has been given us, i.e. the mind of Christ.
It is then through the Spirit, by God’s mercy, that we apply Romans 12:1-2 .
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The Spirit renews our mind so that we can, through testing, discern God’s will.
Through the Spirit’s empowerment, what are we using as a metric for testing to determine God’s will?
First, God has revealed his will in the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16).
Second, God reveals his will through his Church (1 Corinthians 12-13).
Third, God reveals his will through your leaders (Hebrews 13:7).
In Romans 15:30-33, we come full circle in Paul’s journey of God’s will.
30 I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf,
31 that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints,
32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.
33 May the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
We are reminded that we are to seek God’s will for ourselves and others, and be willing to flex and surrender when his will is not accomplished in the way we expected or often wanted.
Let us go in the power of the Holy Spirit, discovering the will of God.