Discerning God's will

Have you ever had to make a hard decision before?

There was this guy I knew at college who took the putting out the fleece passage way too literally

He was deciding whether or not to break up with his gf

He put a towel out one night

Happy it rained..

Went to go out and look at the towel

Someone had parked their car over top of the towel

We do this with the will of God.

We ask for signs

We wait till it “feels” right

God doesn’t try to hide his will

He doesn’t want to make it mysterious

He expects us to follow Him and He will lead us

Before we find out how to follow God’s will, we have to figure out what God’s will is

What is the will of God?

A. God’s sovereign will

Ephesians 1:11 ESV

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

Everything that happens, happens because God ordained it to happen

Nothing happens by accident

You are not powerful enough to surprise God

B. God’s moral will

In Moses describes this alongside God’s will of decree. “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.”

We don’t God’s will of decree, but we know we need to obey His commandments

God’s will for His people

, Moses describes this alongside God’s will of decree. “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.”

Person—God specifies some prerequisites in the individual person before we can follow God’s moral will

His will is that we obey

, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”

“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”

Salvation—we have to be saved before we can interpret anything spiritual

English Standard Version Chapter 2

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.

This Has 2 implications

God will never lead you to do something to disobey His moral will

ii. Dedication—We must be totally surrendered to God to be able to interpret His moral and sovereign will

Obedience in clear things grows us in wisdom to understand how to follow God better in unclear areas as well. The gray areas

b. Norm—God expects us to follow the norm. Following his standards

, “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.”

Notice the connection between obedience and wisom

He has laid out the norm in general revelation, but also in specific revelation

We can’t expect to understand God’s will if we choose to

Obey God in the places you can see clearly, and he will give you wisdom to discern obedience in places that right now are less clear.

On the other hand, if you disobey God, don’t be surprised if His will seems fuzzy or unclear

His will is that we be Holy

, “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…”

God demands for us to be holy

WE cannot live a life totally devoted to becoming like the world

Look at Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

God wants to work all things for our good, but He equates our good with conforming to the likeness of His Son

When we realize God calls us to be Holy and that Holiness is conforming to the image of His Son it shifts our thinking.

We realize that we need to live a life like Jesus lived

He was a man of sorrows

He was acquated with grief and suffering yet remained obedient

Too often we talk about finding God’s will for our lives and it’s always about finding comfort and not about conforming to the image of Jesus

When we face trials of every kind we need not fear that we are being punished for missing God’s will for our lives through some mistake of our own.

No, if God is sovereign, and his purposes cannot be thwarted, then he can use even our bad decisions to bring about his purposes to make us like Christ.

God uses bad decisions to bring about good…because he can

His will is that Christ be Exalted

Let’s read .

In love, he predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ according to his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

God has an unstoppable plan…to put everything under the name of Jesus

What is God’s will? For Christ to be exalted. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knew should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (1

).

we also want to align every decision we make with God’s great, unstoppable purposes to bring all things, in heaven and on earth, together under one name: Jesus Christ.

How to do God’s will

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

God’s way is not to show us the future, but instead to cause us to come to him each and every day, displaying our need for him and our dependence upon him.

So how do we do God’s will? We trust him for the future. And by faith, we use the wisdom he’s given us to make the best decisions we can. But what guides us as we make those decisions? Take a look at verse 33.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…

We need to love God

WE need to cherish His commands

We need to pursue Holiness

And we need to trust Him to supply

We don’t find the will of God by asking “What is God’s will for my life?” or “How can I know God’s plan for my life?”

Instead, we find the will of God by asking, “Am I seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness?” That is God’s will for your life.

Conclusion

As we close I wanted to read a quote from Kevin DeYoung’s book on guidance that I think sums up well what we’ve been thinking about today. He says,

Simply put, God’s will is your growth in Christlikeness. God promises to work all things together for our good that we might be conformed to the image of his Son. And the degree to which this sounds like a lame promise is the degree to which we prefer the stones and scorpions of this world to the true bread from heaven. God never assures us of health, success, or ease. But He promises us something even better: He promises to make us loving, pure and humble like Christ. In short, God’s will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus…The only chains God wants us to wear are the chains of righteousness—not the chains of hopeless subjectivism, not the shackles of risk-free living, not the fetters of horoscope decision making—just the chains befitting a bond servant of Christ Jesus. Die to self. Live for Christ. And then do what you want and go where you want, for God’s glory.