Understanding God's Will for Your Life

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                Question?

          What would you say was the greatest joy in life and yet proved to be the greatest question that you ever had to answer in your life?

          It isn’t marriage. And it isn’t kids either.

          I venture to say that the greatest question and the greatest joy that you will ever know in your life are but the two different sides of the same coin---and for the sake of the analogy; the coin is God’s will for your life. I say that from mine own experience with God’s will. God’s will has proved to be that in my life. The greatest question and yet at the same time the greatest joy. I can’t help but think of where I would be if it had not been seeking and then doing God’s will in my life. I don’t know exactly where I would be, but I do believe that I would not be here with you tonight.   

            It is sad to think but for many Christians God’s will for their lives is still a great question that has not been answered yet. And because of that they have reaped the results of their illness and complacency.

          However, what is a source of distress for some is a source of joy for others. Others have found out what God’s will for their lives and they have threw caution into the wind and are engaged in doing God’s will! I want you to know that those who are in the center if God’s Will are some of the most happiest Christians you will ever meet!

          They have found their reason; they have their purpose for being here on this planet and they are enjoying it and eating it up!

          I don’t blame them!

          We shall look at the bible for the next few weeks and hopefully understand better God’s will and some things to avoid concerning God’s will. The bible is full of folks just like us, weak, frail, and faltering at times yet God chose fit to call them to do some great things that the world hasn’t got over yet! It was his will for their lives! His plan, his reason for them being alive, his purpose for their existence! They found God’s will! Also they learned the hard way of resisting his will and stepping outside of God’s will; that also can teach us some things for ourlives as well.

           I want to wet the appetite of your mind a little tonight and lay some foundational thoughts about God’s will. Because believe it or not; you have your own preconceived notions about God’s will and how to find it.

          We all do. Some things are right on the money and some things, well must be for laughs.

          That’s why it is so necessary to clear the air and dispel some false thinking right at the start about God’s will. 

          First let me give some ways some use to find God’s will for their lives.

THERE'S THE EXAMPLE of Christians who use the open window method in seeking God's will. You put your Bible by a window and (whew!) the pages blow and you put your finger on a verse. One man did that and pointed to the verse, "Judas went and hanged himself?' Not a very good life verse, and he did it again. This time he put his finger on the verse that said, "Go and do thou likewise?' The third verse he found said, "Whatsoever thou doest, do quickly."

Here’s another:

A COLLEGE SOPHOMORE was in need of a car and had a series of dreams one night and everything was in yellow, everything! Early the next morning he began to hit the used car lots, looking at one car after another. Finally he found God's will for him: a yellow car, yellow inside and out. He didn't even ask to drive it. He just bought it.

However it turned out to be a lemon.

Here’s one that I like:

A GROUP OF THEOLOGIANS were discussing predestination and man’s free will. When the argument became heated, the dissidents split into two groups. One man, unable to make up his mind which group to join, slipped into the predestination crowd. Challenged as to why he was there, he said, "Hey, I came of my own free will." The group was angered, "Free will? You can't join us!" He retreated to the opposite group and met the same challenge. "I was sent here," he said honestly. "Get out!" they stormed. "You can't join us unless you come of your own free will."

         

Here’s a tuff one:

          Which view is right? A man stumbled and fell down the steps of a large church. One Arminian watched and said, "I wonder why he did that? I wonder how that happened?" A Calvinist watched and said, "I'll bet he's glad it's over."

Here’s another:

AS A MAN WAS DRIVING in Washington, D.C., he was searching for God's will for his future. His car ran out of gas in front of the Philippines embassy. He took it as a sign of God's will he should go to the Philippines as a missionary. I wonder what he would do if he were single and stuck on an elevator with a single young lady named Mary.

          These ways will land you into trouble much less God’s will! If you think these are valid ways to finding God’s will; hey you need to cut God some more slack! God’s will isn’t that hard to find for someone whose willing to do what ever it is! Chances are you have stepped out of God’s will more often than finding it afresh! What does that mean? That means you were in God’s will and didn’t know it until you stepped out of it!

God doesn’t make finding his will hard, we make it hard and unfindable if our hearts aren’t right, and we employ some of the dumbest things imaginable.

          We will cover:

o       Finding God’s Will

o       Running from God’s Will

o       Stepping outside of God’s Will

o       Side stepping God’s Will

o       Helping God’s Will

o       Understanding the Permissive Will of God

o       Resting in God’s Will

          These are areas where I have personally struggled and praise the Lord I have over come! But maybe there’s an area in your life where you not so clear about God’s will. I would listen, God knows your need, he will speak to that need, if you are listening.

Tonight, I want us to understand some fundamental things about God’s will.

           

I. Believing God has a Will for you life.

          The very first thing to consider is this very basic question; “do I really believe that God has a plan for my life?’ “Does such a thing as God’s will even exist?” Some Christians think that there isn’t a plan for them, they think that God has over looked them in the crowd of humanity and they have just cause to do their own thing. God is too busy with someone else, they say.

          They feel like that are mistakes with God. That God didn’t intent for them to be here, or they were just a mistake with their parents. They might not come out and say it; but they believe that God does not know or have a plan for their lives! Such thinking doesn’t come from the Bible.  Such thinking is humanism at its height, mixed with a side of evolution and served with a cold drink of relativism. That simply means we don’t where we came from; we don’t care where we are headed and we don’t care who thinks we wrong.

          No wonder that a million badies will be aborted this year. With the thinking that life is just a mistake in the beginning, no wonder why the abortion clinics are full! 

          Such thinking doesn’t come from the bible. The bibles teaches that every life has a purpose and that purpose is included in God’s will for that person!

A. Jeremiah

          Jeremiah was told that God knew what he was to do even before he was physically born! Turn to:

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

          Here is God assuring Jeremiah that even before he was born that God had a will for his life! Jeremiah wasn’t a mistake but was made for a purpose, a reason for him being alive in his day and age! God had already made a road for him to travel in life! That was reassuring for Jeremiah when he was rejected and locked up as unpatriotic doomsday preacher! Jeremiah could always go back in his mind and go over the fact that he was being just what God wanted him to be! Jeremiah was locked up twice, threatened not doubt, but he could do all this knowing that he was at the center of God’s Will! That’s why he could carry on!

B. John the Baptist  Lk 1;12-17

          Here is an Angel from the Lord revealing what their unborn son, John the Baptist will do in life! God had a plan even for this unborn child; which was to prepare the way for the messiah. Here again God has a road for him to travel; all picked out all that john needed to do was to travel it!

      

C. Jesus

          Jesus knew God’s will as a child. There in Luke Jesus and his family went to the temple for the Passover and you know the story he stayed behind without them knowing they finally found him in the temple where he said: Luk 2:49  And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? Jesus was 12 years old mind you. That knowledge of the father will stuck with him and compelled him to fulfill God’s will for his earthy life. Jesus told Pilate right before he was crucified: Joh 18:37  Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

 

          Jesus found God’s Will and completed it.

For us to think that God doesn’t have a will for ourlives is to deny God’s right to ourselves!

          If you are alive and saved, marked it down God has a will for your life; he even had before you got saved!

II. The two aspects of God’s Will

          Just to keep things straight in our heads I think we can break the over all will of God for you down into two different areas. The great preacher Spurgeon used to have a college to train preachers. He never ran over a hundred students; this was a church that ran well over six thousand every time the doors were open. The reason why they ran so few compared to their church was that Spurgeon refused more students that accepted. He reason was that they who he refused had not mastered what he called the general will of God. In fact, Spurgeon told you right quick if God really called you or not! I believe God gives some preachers more discernment than others, maybe that’s what Spurgeon had. Yet he reasoned also that God wouldn’t call a man to preach his gospel that would be a liability rather than an asset. Persons in his mind that obviously have not mastered the simplest things in the will of God.

That brings us the first area of God’s Will.

A. The General will of God

          The general will of God is just that, general. It covers all the bases that is right for each and every Christian do be involved in.

          It’s right and expected for us to  be here tonight just like it is right and expected for those Christians in Ireland, or Greece, or Guatemala, in the Us or else where. Heb 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”

          The general will of God fits every Christian wherever they are at, whenever. If it was right to serve God 20 years ago, guess what? It still is!

The general will of God includes these and more:

Salvation, Prayer, Bible study, worship, faithfulness, giving, witnessing, spirit filled just to name a few.

          You don’t have to pray about the general will of God, why? Because God has already revealed want he wants concerning it. To take the time to pray and fast to see if it’s right to read the bible; is not really needed. To take the time in prayer to see if we should be tithing is not really necessary. God has already answered that question!

B. The Specific will of God

The other area is the specific will of God. This area is where people find that certain one thing that maybe is different from everyone else but yet they know that God wants them to do it. This area is where the callings and burdens come from in our point of view. This is where someone may here the call to preach, or to be a missionary, or evangelism or find a burden to minister to kids with downs syndrome, or the blind, or the death, etc.

This is above and beyond the general will of God. it could really be anything. I heard of an old lady who used to go to the hospitals and give the men their shaves. She did this on her own time. She would be shaving a man with the old straight razors and right when she would have the razor right over their throat when she would hesitate and question them about if they were saved or not. Needless to say, she had a lot of hospital conversions.

          Maybe God told here that’s what I want you to do with your free time just to glorify me. That was her specific thing that God wanted done!

         

III. Finding God’s Will

Finding God’s will is not as hard as it seems. What it depends on is your heart and your obedience!

It’s kind of like working a crossword puzzle.

You fill in what you know right off the bat. And the rest will reveal itself in time!

The best way to start to find the will of God is to fill in the general will of God! Do what you know is right! Do what you don’t have to guess about!

Once you fill all those in, the hidden word will start to show itself because of those over lapping letters.

The specific will of God will be made clear!

I started to fill in the general will of God for myself and the hidden word spelled preacher, pastor!

What is your hidden word?  You might not know. But one thing I do know you fill in the general will of God longer enough the other word will show itself!

Closing:

          I wonder what God wants only you to do for him specifically. I’m sure of this one thing! You want know what the Lord wants you to do specifically if you haven’t mastered the general will of God.

          Why? Because God is wise enough and good enough not to lay too much upon us. He knows exactly how much we can bear!  He knows how much we can be faithful too at this exact moment.

          If you want to know God’s specific will then get in on the general will and live in it! And you want have to worry God will come to you with something that only you can do for him!

          What an honor! What confidence that God has in you!

But it all starts in the general will of God!

What part of it that you have problems with? What ever part it is that’s what is holding you back from going on!     

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