Sermon Tone Analysis

Knowing and Doing God's Will

*Selected Scriptures*

Pasted from <http:~/~/www.gty.org~/Resources~/transcripts~/80-220>

One of the most enduring questions that people ask, and this has been suggested to me by several people that I might address it, is the question, "How can I know God's will for my life?"

I remember when I was just a college student, and I was very involved in athletics.

I was playing football and basketball and baseball and all of that, and athletes gain a certain amount of notoriety.

And I was asked, because I was a Christian, if I would come and if I would speak.

And so I began speaking as a college student here and there.

It was my first sort of attempt at...at being a preacher.

And, in the process, it became apparent to me that people were always asking the question, "How can I know God's will for my life?"

And so very early on I began to study that and to try to discern the pattern of Scripture for knowing the will of God.

Early on, then, in my preaching, that was sort of a substantial element of...of the content of what I would give when I spoke to young peoples' groups, as I did very regularly.

For a number of years, probably about three years, I preached about 30 to 40 times a month, all across the country to youth groups.

And...and one of the main subjects I was always asked to address was this issue of knowing the will of God.

Now, I had the occasion during those years to come to the Moody Bible Institute.

And Phil Johnson reminded me of this.

He reminds of it, has reminded me of it several times.

He was a student there when I came to speak, and he said somebody, perhaps Darlene.

But they were not married at the time.

"I hear there's this guy named MacArthur who's coming.

What's he gonna speak about?"

And I had told them that I was gonna speak on the will of God.

And Phil said, "Doesn't he know that everybody who comes here speaks on the will of God?  That's all we ever hear in chapel.

What makes him think he can say anything that already hasn't been said?"

Well, I didn't know that everybody spoke on that, and I didn't know it was a pertinent subject.

And Phil said that he, in spite of the fact that he did not want to hear me and did not wanna hear another message on the will of God, he did want to sit by Darlene.

So, as a result of that ill-conceived motive, he showed up in chapel, and he has reminded me that I preached on the will of God.

Now, I don't know what it did to anybody else, but Phil has been following me ever since.

So I think it was God's will that he hear that message that day.

You never know the turn that the will of God may take you.

Now, it is an enduring question, and young people ask it, and not only young people, but it is asked repeatedly throughout our Christian experience.

You know, where do I go to school?

Who do I marry?

What is my career path?

Do I take this job, that job, this opportunity, that opportunity?

Do I buy this, sell this, do this with my children?

Do I home school?

Do I put 'em in a Christian school?

There's an endless string of decisions that are being made by people all through their lives.

When am I going to retire, and what am I gonna do when I do, etc., etc.

I mean that is not just the...the big decisions.

It is those routine things that we face day in and day out.

And the question is a compelling question.

How can I know what God's wants me to do?  Now, there's a general confusion about this.

There are some people who think that God is somehow reluctant to let us know His will, because He gets some kind of strange pleasure out of hiding it.

And so we go through life sort of like we're in a divine lottery, hoping we can kind of get the lucky ticket and that God is sort of dispensing scratchers and maybe yours says, you know, the right number and maybe it doesn't.

And God is somehow gleeful about the fact that it's limited to just a select few.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are other people who think that God's will is some kind of a...of a almost transcendental experience.

You're running down the street in the rain, and you're...somehow slip on the pavement, fall down, land in the gutter on a map of India.

And this constitutes the divine call.

And so you rush off to sign up for missionary work.

There are others who are waiting for a voice.

They're waiting for some kind of inner voice or some kind of external voice commanding them to do something.

This is very, very common.

This week I received an e‑mail, and interesting e‑mail.

It...it was a...a lovely gesture telling me that someone generously had given a copy of the MacArthur Study Bible to every member of the United States Supreme Court.

That's a wonderful thing to do, and I was appreciative of it.

The person sending me the e‑mail said they were very excited about this, because the person who did it said that God told them to do it, and that they were doing, therefore, the will of God.

The person who sent the e‑mail was thrilled that God had told the person to do that.

I'm glad that they were generous enough to give those Bibles to the Supreme Court, but I doubt that God told them to do it.

There may have been a strong impulse to do it, a strong feeling that they interpreted as God telling 'em to do it.

But there wouldn't be any way to know that.

God doesn't reveal Himself audibly anymore.

He has closed the canon of Scripture.

The Word of God is complete.

It is the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

God now speaks to us through His Word.

Does He...does

He give us impulses?

Does He direct us?

Yes, He does.

But we don't have any way to know that for sure.

I don't have a red light on my head, as I told you some time ago, that goes on when it's God and goes off when it's me.

I don't have any way to know that.

You do what you do.

And maybe in retrospect you see the hand of God.

But how can we know the will of God?  We...we can't hear voices in our heads.

We cannot know that they...those impulses we feel are God moving us.

We cannot wait for some monumental experience to occur before we sort of get insight.

How can we routinely, day in, day out, know God's will?

Lemme take you to the place you have to start, Matthew chapter 6.  Matthew chapter 6.

I'm gonna be very practical and somewhat condense this morning, because I need to get this all in the next 35 or 40 minutes.

It'll go pretty fast.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is instructing His disciples about how to pray.

It's very familiar territory.

And He says, "Pray...verse 9...then, in this way.

This is what I want you to pray for.

This is the routine kind of praying.

This is the daily kind of praying.

Pray like this:  'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

Now this is a mindset.

And the mindset is, "I am concerned that God's name be honored.

I am concerned that God's Kingdom be advanced.

And I am concerned that God's will be done."

So if you want to know God's will, this is where you start.

You start by praying for it, by praying for it.

Yes, you wanna know God's will, pray for it.

Pray, "Your will be done on earth."