The Will of God and Me.
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What Is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?
What Is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies 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.
Highlights
All of life is to be Spiritual Worship.
We are to present of bodies as living sacrifices.
Which is acceptable to God.
The target of all human life in God’s eyes is that Christ would be made to look as valuable as He is.
Which means using our minds and hearts and bodies to express the worth of God and all that He is for us in Christ Jesus.
Lucky for us there is a way to do that.
How we live.
How we love.
1. How do we present our bodies as living sacrifices?
By being transformed! Spiritual Worship which is what Paul says is sacrifical living is not just through our outward behavior, but by how we feel and think. It starts with our mind.
Become What You Are.
Become What You Are.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
When God chose us to be Christians our old sinful self died and in turn in recieved a new spirtual life; a renewed life.
and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
This renewed life means our minds are being renewed in knowledge after the image of it’s creator; or to put it another way our minds are being renewed in knowledge to be more like God’s.
Paul’s focus in verse two is the renewed mind. “Don’t be conformed by the world”.
2. What does that mean? Don’t be conformed by the world?
Conform means - to conform oneself (i. e. one's mind and character) to another's pattern (fashion oneself according to.
Go with the flow.
Do what culture says is ok to do.
Interpret cultural norms as truth.
But instead what? “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is”.
And what we need to do is establish what the will of God is.
There are two implied Wills of God.
The Two Wills of God.
The Two Wills of God.
There are two clear and very different meanings for the term “will of God” in the Bible. We need to know them and decide which one is being used here in Romans 12:2. In fact, knowing the difference between these two meanings of “the will of God” is crucial to understanding one of the biggest and most perplexing things in all the Bible, namely, that God is sovereign over all things and yet disapproves of many things. Which means that God disapproves of some of what he ordains to happen. That is, he forbids some of the things he brings about. And he commands some of the things he hinders. Or to put it most paradoxically: God wills some events in one sense that he does not will in another sense.
God’s Sovereign Will.
God’s Sovereign Will.
God’s sovereign control of all that comes to pass.
And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.
There is no changing it.
Sometimes it includes the sins of man.
But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
Sometime it includes things that He hates.
For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.
also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
God’s Will can not be broken; it will always come to pass.
“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of earth;
And no one can ward off His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’
3. What do you think about God’s Sovereign Will?
God’s Will of Command.
God’s Will of Command.
His will is what He commands us to do.
This is the will of God we can disobey and fail to do. The will of command we do whether we beleive in it or not.
Non-believers live immorally disobey God by their life style whether they beleiev in God or not.
The will of command we can also fail to do.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
Not all will enter the Kingdom of Heaven because of obedience to the will of God.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Both of these verses are clear commands of the will of God.
4. Why is the Will of God so important to obey?
The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
The Will of Command.
The Will of Command.
In verse 1 of Romans 12 referes to the will of command.
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.
God’s Soveriegn will may not always be made clear to us - but His will of command is made clear within scripture.
5. Where do we; current Christ followers go to determine the Will of God?
We must saturate our minds with scripture.
We must bleed the Bible.
Having a renewed mind and testing it against scripture equals obedience to God’s will.
With help from the Holy Spirit the renewed mind seeks to understand the commands in scripture.
Without it we misinterpret scripture and the commands within it.
“If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
or take many wives.
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Application
You might be thinking “How does this help decide who to marry, or what car to buy, or what school to go to?”
The Bible doesn’t have specific answers to these questions but having a mind that is shaped by the commands in Scripture means we can see and assess all life situations with the mind of Christ.
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?
It doesn’t who to marry, but gives advice on what kind of company to keep.
Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.
Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”—
which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith.
Grace be with you.
Be responsible with the blessing that God has given you.
God’s aim in Romans 12 is a new mind, a new way of thinking, and judging. He wants us to be transformed, matured, and freed by the truth of His revealed word.
God wants us to stop responding without thinking or reflecting on the situation without a renewed transformed mind.
Most of our thoughts, attitudes, actions are spontaneous. Which is ungood.
“You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
“The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
God commands things like: Don’t be angry, prideful, covet, anxious, jealous, envy - non of these actions are thought about before hand they are naturally in us.
With a transformed way of thinking are heart and mind are made new.
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
6. What makes the tree good and it’s fruit good? and how does that apply to us?