Seeking His Will

Romans 12:1-2

Theme of series

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.” memorizing it

Romans 12:1–2 “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

KNOWING THE WILL OF GOD

Introduction: As an introduction today I thought it would be fun and somewhat helpful to consider what the will of God is not.

The will of God is not what you read in your horoscope this morning. Still read em? I’m a Scorpio, who else, my understanding is scorpios don’t get along, not real oct 23 - nov 21

The will of God is not a Chinese fortune cookie. Quit saving them and putting them on your fridge.

The will of God is not the result of a personality or spiritual gifts test that you have taken. I’d probably be ok if you used it as an excuse to serve more

The will of God is not necessarily something that makes you money. Could be opposite, would that be ok?

The will of God is not you praying about what you want until God makes that idea His will.

The will of God is not a secret.

The will of God may not necessarily come to you in a dream. And what if it did? If God came to me in a dream and told me to tell you something, would you believe me if it was difficult, opposed your current way of living, or made life any less comfortable? I had a professor in college tell us that we had to be careful to not confuse visions with dreams that we might have on account of the meat lover’s pizza we ate right before we went to bed… but none of us are guilty of that right?

God never intended for finding His will for your life to be difficult, let’s talk about it a little bit more about this.

There are three key ideas I want you to focus in on from this text. Presentation, transformation, and the Will of God. And we are going to take those three key ideas and work them into a nicely packaged phrase. Presentation plus transformation equals revelation. (repeat 2x)

When we present ourselves to God in a holy and acceptable way, and when we are supernaturally transformed in opposition to conformity of our distorted worldview, revelation will come. If you want to know the will of God today the first step is presentation. Presenting yourself, a sacrifice, which is holy and acceptable before God.

Presentation (slowly on present-present pronunciation)

So how do we do it? Well the one thing that we do not want to do is to overcomplicate the matter. Presenting yourself to another implies that you are in the presence of the one to which you are presenting. Seems easy enough does it not? Present is where we get our word present (gift) due to that fact that we are presenting an item to another person. This presentation usually comes with the understanding that the present which was given now belongs to the one to whom it was presented. I think we all understand what it means to present, but what do we present?

What we present

Our text today says we present our bodies. We present our bodies as holy and acceptable sacrifices before God. Our bodies represent everything that we are in the flesh: Our desires, our ambitions, and our human reasoning. And we present these ideas as sacrifices before God. The very essence of sacrifice means that something is being given up for the sake of something else. Presenting our desires, ambitions and reasoning on the altar of sacrifice is our way of saying, God… this life does not belong to me. I give it up to be holy and acceptable for you. We have to present ourselves as the first step towards knowing God’s will for our life.

Transition

Once we have presented ourselves to God, a supernatural transformation has to take place, and if we want to know what that looks like we don’t have to go much further than this very passage or scripture. Transformation is in opposition to being conformed to this world and by renewing our mind.

Transformation

Conformed

So let’s talk about getting away from being conformed to this world and then we will dig a little deeper into transformation. In order to better understand conformity to this world, I want to further define the use of the word “world” in the passage. The word here for world in the original language is to be understood as a particular age or time in history. In other words, the very place and time that you live. So let me re-read this verse for you in somewhat of an expanded way that helps make sure we fully understand the request that is being made of us in this verse.

Do not allow yourself to keep on being patterned and influenced in a way that causes you to look anything like those that remain outside of Christ. But instead, allow the places that you hang out and the way you act to be changed in a manner that is visible to others and will proclaim to all that your inward character and condition have been forever impacted by the constant and daily renewal of your worldview. You see that’s what reading the Bible every day does, it renews your worldview and the way that you reason through ideas. That’s what that writer means when he says our minds need to be renewed.

Renewal

Why then does the way that we think, or our worldview NEED to be renewed? The reason that our minds need to be renewed is because of the incredible effort that the present evil of this world is making to distort a Biblical and pure worldview. Turn on the news, do you see hope? Go to the bars, do you find peace? Go to the movies, do you see morality? Everywhere that we go in the world today we are being fed a perspective that opposes the ideas that the Bible tells us to think about. When we choose to not conform to the world and we purpose in our hearts to seek daily renewal from His word, transformation is on the way.

The word transformation comes from the same word where we get our word metamorphosis from. For most of us the idea of metamorphosis is going to take us back to a science class where we discussed the way that a butterfly comes about. As we understand an ugly little creature such as a caterpillar or a larva that slimes its way around the world for a little while and then if they are fortunate enough to avoid all of the obstacles of life that come their way such as larger hungry animals, immense wind storms, or size 12 Nike tennis shoes, they get to advance to the next level of life where they enter a cocoon or chrysalis. And while they are in there, something happens to this creature. A biological process begins by which the creature physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. This process is usually accompanied by a change of HABITAT or BEHAVIOR. Ultimately, we could use a definition for transformation as: to change in a manner visible to others, to change inwardly in fundamental character or condition. I feel that too many people today want to go through the miraculous process of Spiritual transformation and then hold on to number of ideas from the past. Can you imagine a caterpillar saying I don’t want to be a butterfly? I can picture two caterpillars having a conversation and one saying to the other, I’ll stay behind and show the other worms how to be better worms…

Too often thats all we allow ourselves to become, the most attractive worm in the bunch. But God called us to become beautiful flying creation that would inspire others to do so as well. Christianity should change us in a way whereby others look at us and see a new life worth pursuing. To be transformed means to change in a manner visible to others, to change inwardly in fundamental character or condition. Have you truly been transformed today? When we have presented our lives to him and allowed a true transformation to take place we can begin to know His will.

Knowing the Will of God

Paraphrasing our passage again from today.Present your entire being to God, lay your life down before him. Allow him to perform a supernatural transforming work in your life, and then you will be able to prove, know, and see the will of God in your life. Presentation plus transformation equals revelation. Desire revelation today. Pray that God would reveal Himself to you through His word.

We say that we so desperately want to know His will but we cannot find His will without His word. Many of us aren’t finding God’s will because time after time after time He has revealed His will to us and we did not like the answer. Maybe God doesn’t want you to lead a certain ministry because He has another place for you. Maybe God doesn’t want to give you one position at work because He has a better one for you that you aren’t even thinking about right now. Maybe there is a rebellious spirit within you. Perhaps you have been running from God’s will. You could say, “I’ve been searching to know the will of God.” But (it’s not your job to find the will of God. It’s God’s job to reveal His will to you).REPEAT It is your job simply to present yourself to him. If you are conformed to this present cultures mindsets and ways of doing things, you will NOT know the will of God, and therefore you will not be able to DO the will of God.

Let me break this down even more in clear and simple terms. If you are struggling to hear from God today, or you are lacking the confidence to move forward with His plan, you can know this.

If you have desires, attitudes, reasoning that have not bee surrendered to God, His will for your life will not be clear.

If you are continuing to conform to this present culture, let’s simplify this one even more. If you are knowingly sinning or ignoring something that you know to be right but choose not to do it. You are not going to hear from God until you clear that up.

Sin and disobedience will always pause or disrupt God’s word from being revealed to you until you take the time to repent of it and move forward. Let me pose this question? If you have been or are currently disobeying what God is telling you to do, why would He give new revelation and insight? God is not going to waste fresh revelation on those who have disregarded His previous Word.

The word of God reveals the will of God for your life. So if you only have a casual relationship with the Word of God, you are going to have little understanding or clarity about His will.

Presentation plus transformation equals revelation.

RESPONSE/ INVITE TEAM PP SLIDE PRESENTATION PLUS TRANSFORMATION EQUALS REVELATION

This morning there at least 3 solid reasons you could come and pray today.

#1 – You are still conforming to this world in some area of your life and you need to give it to God to let him perform a supernatural transforming work in your life.

#2 – The second group are those who say they are searching for God’s will but deep inside they know God is directing them, and they haven’t full obeyed. If you are lacking the courage to make that next step, you can know this. (God will select, direct, and protect His chosen.) If the God of the universe has called you to something He has all the resources, people, and strength that you need waiting for you on the other side of that decision you need to make.

#3 – You just don’t have a relationship with Jesus today. You can know that there is one aspect of God’s will that is the same for all of us. The will of God is that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You cannot know the will of God without having a personal relationship with Jesus. Your life will never have true meaning outside of a saving relationship with God. When you accept Him as your savior and decide to live for Him, you will begin to hear His voice in ways that you never realized were possible.

I’m going to ask you to stand this morning and…

You can come and kneel today and pray in whichever way appropriate this morning. But additionally today we want to give you the chance to really commit to that calling God has on your life.

I believe God is calling me to ___________, will you pray for me to take the next steps. NAME, Qualify it’s not to call you out or hold your feet to the fire, only 50 but I’d like to believe God is still calling people. Prove your pastor right this morning and step up to these tables.

As we sing this song, I believe the very stepping out to one of these table could be the next step towards God empowering you to answer that call.

Post response:

Goodbye online

Children’s meeting about vision, briefly explain purpose, Thrive group and awana sign up, 8 of 100 where are we on sponsorships

landscaping this Saturday welcome center, prayer team

EMPHASIZE PRAYER NIGHT!!!