Sermon Tone Analysis

The Disciple’s Will

“What is God’s will for my life?”

It may be the most commonly asked question in Western Christianity today.

What in the world is God’s will for my life?

And I think one of the reasons is because we have so many decisions that we make and we have so many questions that we ask that are not specifically addressed in the Bible.

Countless people are confused and wondering, “How do I find God’s will for my life?”

Countless people are confused and wondering, “How do I find God’s will for my life?”

“What is God’s will for my life?”

It may be the most commonly asked question in Western Christianity today.

What in the world is God’s will for my life?

And I think one of the reasons is because we have so many decisions that we make and we have so many questions that we ask that are not specifically addressed in the Bible.

We have many decisions we make.

Some small, some large with serious potential consequences.

We’ve got all kinds of questions and thoughts that the Bible doesn’t give specific guidance on.

So here’s the Bad News, there are...

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 982.

Countless people are confused and wondering, “How do I find God’s will for my life?”

The Good News...

God’s will is not lost.

It’s not lost, so we don’t have to find it.

We are not living in this cosmic Easter Egg hunt where we’re trying to find God’s will and God is saying, “You’re getting warmer.

You’re getting warmer.

Oh, no, you’re getting colder.”

What if God’s will is not some secret that we need to uncover somewhere?

What if God makes His will very clear to us, and what if God is actually more passionate about you knowing His will than you are about knowing His will.

God desires for me to follow His will so much that He lives in me to accomplish it.

What if God’s will is not some secret that we need to uncover somewhere?

What if God makes His will very clear to us, and what if God is actually more passionate about you knowing His will than you are about knowing His will.

This is the bottom line and foundational truth...

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 983.

God desires for me to follow His will so much that He lives in me to accomplish it.

This is where we get back to these concentric circles.

These different circles are not neat categories.

Our will affects all these areas of my life.

I want us to dive into a really interesting passage of Scripture this morning in where we’re actually seeing a kind of confrontation between Paul and Peter.

They’re actually butting heads with each other.

What happened is, just to give you a little background, there was a group in the New Testament church called the Judaizers.

And these folks came on the scene, and they basically believed that you can follow Christ and Christ is who saved you, but you also have to follow Jewish laws.

And so in order to be a Christian, you also need to be circumcised.

In order to be a Christian, you also need to follow these food and dietary laws.

And what was happening was Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ and Gentiles lived a lot differently.

The Gentiles were wondering, “Well, does that mean we have to be circumcised in order to follow Christ?” or “Does that mean we have to follow your dietary laws in order to be saved?”

And the Judaizers were saying, “Yes, that’s exactly what needs to happen.”

Christ gives us a new identity.

What happened is, just to give you a little background, there was a group in the New Testament church called the Judaizers.

And these folks came on the scene, and they basically believed that you can follow Christ and Christ is who saved you, but you also have to follow Jewish laws.

And so in order to be a Christian, you also need to be circumcised.

In order to be a Christian, you also need to follow these food and dietary laws.

And what was happening was Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ and Gentiles lived a lot differently.

The Gentiles were wondering, “Well, does that mean we have to be circumcised in order to follow Christ?” or “Does that mean we have to follow your dietary laws in order to be saved?”

And the Judaizers were saying, “Yes, that’s exactly what needs to happen.”

And so you have this division, this conflict, and Peter was right in the middle of it.

What would happen is if you were going to sit down, say you were a Jewish Christian and you were going to sit down for a meal with Gentile Christians, and they were going to start eating these things that went against your dietary laws then you were in a quandary.

Either number one, you could eat those things and risk violating these laws from the Old Testament, or number two, you could say, “I’m not going to eat with you guys anymore,” and by implication say that they are not acceptable to God because they’re eating those things.

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 984.

And Peter was in that deal.

For a while, he was sitting there eating this meal with the Gentiles, but then some Judaizers showed up and he started to back away, and he wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore.

And by implication, he was reverting back to this works based righteousness that says, “In order to be accepted by God, you’ve got to do these certain things and abstain from these certain things.”

And Paul just flat out calls him on it in .

And in the middle of this context, we have one of the crown jewels of the New Testament, a verse that I pray, I hope will lodge into our hearts and our minds this morning and help us to realize how Christ in us affects the way we live.

It’s verse 20, but we’ll start in verse 11 to get the context.

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 984.

Galatians 2:11-21

And , if you don’t have it underlined in your Bible, let me encourage you to underline it, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” ().

That is one mammoth verse that brings us in line with what it means for Christ to transform, absolutely transform the way we live and transform our will.

Christ gives us a new identity.

And , if you don’t have it underlined in your Bible, let me encourage you to underline it, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” ().

That is one mammoth verse that brings us in line with what it means for Christ to transform, absolutely transform the way we live and transform our will.

I want us to see some truths that are hidden here in this verses that help us understand what it means for Christ to transform our will.

Christ gives us a new identity.

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 985.

Christ gives us a new identity.

This is where starts off, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

The great exchange at the cross…

And this is probably the most concise picture, but it’s a picture we’ve got all over Paul’s writing from the New Testament about how in our lives we are united with Christ and everything that’s Christ becomes ours, and it all revolves around the cross.

Crucified with Christ, the cross is the one place where myself is united with Christ and all that He is.

This is why He says later in , “I boast in the cross,” which is a weird statement.

How do you boast in an instrument of torture?

He boasts in the cross because of what happens at the cross.

David Platt, “The Disciple’s Will,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2007), 985.

The great exchange at the cross…

I want you to think about the great exchange that happens at the cross, and the unity we have in Christ that happens at the cross.

What happens at the cross?

First of all, at the cross I give Him my sin...

I give him my sin; He gives me His righteousness.

That’s what we see in ...

We give it all to Him, and He exchanges it with His righteousness.

That’s a good thing, but then it gets better.

Not only do we give Him our sin, He gives us his righteousness, but I also...

I give him my slavery; He gives me His freedom.

The whole picture in the New Testament is we’re slaves to the law, we are slaves to ourselves, slaves to the flesh.

That’s what it says in verse 19...

We are free from the guilt of the law.

We are free to live for God.

And at the cross...

I give him my defeat; He gives me His victory.

It’s not that the law’s a bad thing.

It’s just that we can’t live up to it.