(Part 3) Lesson # 13 God's Will & Guidance

Alright, so let's finish up lesson 13 on God's will and guidance.

Before we do that, let's turn to Mark chapter 3. There's just one passage that I wanted to look at in the gospel of Mark chapter 3, but this is the final session of our study in the book

Fundamentals of the Faith. So for those of you who are here like from the start and did all the work in the book, pat yourself on the back.

You endured it all, so good job. For the next few weeks in May, I'll have to come up with a different topic.

We have three Sundays left because we have our break for Sunday school, so no

Sunday school June through August. So the next few weeks, I'll have to come up with a different topic and then we'll resume in September.

And I thought about, you know, depending on how many new people kind of come in, even if not that many came in, you know,

I thought maybe this book we could do it again in maybe five years. We wouldn't want to do it too soon.

But I thought it was really beneficial and I've enjoyed going through it, so other people seem to agree.

So let's look at Mark chapter 3 verses 31 through 35. It says, then his brothers, this is obviously

Jesus's brothers, his brothers and his mother came and standing outside they sent to him calling him.

And a multitude was sitting around him and they said to him, look your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

But Jesus answered them saying, who is my mother or my brothers?

And he looked around in a circle at those who sat about him and said, here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.

So obviously talking about the subject of God's will, according to Jesus himself, what's he saying?

He's saying that those fellow brothers and fellow Christians, they are in sense just as much family.

In fact, according to what Jesus is saying, they are more family than even my own family.

Because at this point Jesus's half brothers didn't believe in him.

His half brothers and half sisters were not obeying or not following the will of God.

So when they wanted to interrupt Jesus, as he was ministering, hey your mom's outside.

Of course his mother did believe. But your brothers are outside. They want to talk to you. And he's not trying to be rude here.

That's not the purpose. But he's making a statement that whoever does the will of God, they are my brother, my sister, and mother.

So doing the will of God. How to know the will of God. I just want to read this. I found this article on gutquestions .org.

Just on the subject of God's will. It says the better we get to know a person, the more acquainted we become with his or her desires.

For example, a child may look across a busy street at the ball that bounced away.

But he doesn't run after it because he knows my dad wouldn't want me to do that.

He doesn't have to ask his father for advice on every particular situation. He knows what his father would say.

Why? Because he knows his father. You ever have, you can hear someone's voice sort of in the back of your head.

What they would, you just know how they would respond. You know what they would say. You know what they would want you to do. The same is true in our relationship to God.

As we walk with the Lord, obeying his word, and relying on his spirit, we find that we are given the mind of Christ.

And that mind of Christ, that comes from 1st Corinthians 2 16, which says, For who has known the mind of the

Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So that verse, you know, we, who knows the mind of God?

We know what he has revealed. But who instructs God? We don't instruct God. It's the other way around.

God instructs us. So whatever situation we face, when we have a decision to make, when we're tempted, whatever it is, we want to, you know, hear, quote -unquote, the voice of God, you know, in our mind, telling us, you don't want to do this, or you should do this.

So Christians have the mind of Christ, and that's part of how we are led by the

Spirit. Okay, any questions on any of that? But I like that, that statement from Mark 3.

Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.

You know, when people are converted, that's often one of the big, and continues to be one of the big, prayer requests and desires, that we want to see our family come to saving faith in Christ.

We want our brother or sister, or cousins, or aunt, you know, whoever it is in your family that's not saved, or not following Christ.

That is our desire, and that's a good desire. Okay, let's pick up where we left off.

This is the nature of guidance. B, the nature of guidance. We talked about direct guidance and indirect guidance.

So the direct guidance is spoken revelation from God. That's direct. Who received spoken revelation from God?

I just mentioned, you know, hearing the voice of God in your mind, and I said, you know, quote -unquote, or whatever, because we don't actually hear the voice of God.

At least I don't. You know, I know some people claim to hear audible voices, but I don't think anyone at this church is claiming that.

Talk to me if you are. Come let me know. Yes, Carolyn. Wouldn't it be like your conscience?

God probably speaks through the conscience, and if you listen to it, if you've gone to study school and everything, you realize that the

Holy Spirit is in you. Well, God can lead us and speak to us, in that sense, through the conscience, but it's not necessarily the same, because some people, their conscience, the

Bible talks about their conscience is seared, like with a hot iron. There are some people that are okay in their conscience.

They're okay with doing certain things, and they might even say, well, God has affirmed me in this, and well, that's not the voice of God at all.

So God can use the conscience, but it has to be informed by his word.

So those who have the mind of Christ, they know the scripture, they have the Holy Spirit, and that can work with the conscience, but it's not necessarily the same thing, because everybody has a conscience, right?

Unless they're a sociopath, but even they have some voice in their head, right? But Christians, we have a conscience and the

Holy Spirit and the mind of Christ. So yes, yes, and no. All right. Spoken revelation from God.

That's one direct way that God guides us. He spoke to Moses, right? He doesn't speak to me directly, but he did speak to Moses and many others.

Visions, we talked about that, direct guidance. That's something that's a unique experience given by God that happened in the

Old Testament. The New Testament apostles had visions. I generally don't believe God is working in that way today, because his word has been established, although he could.

I can't say that he doesn't do it at all, but you know, that's not the typical way just for everyday believers that we wouldn't all even should expect to receive visions or dreams.

God gave who is the person in the Bible that had a dream that was directly from God?

Remember, Joseph was able to interpret dreams. Well, I'm thinking about Old Testament Joseph interpreted dreams, but New Testament Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, he had a dream where the angel of God spoke to him.

Yep. Of course, we have dreams and our dreams are crazy. They don't make any sense.

And if you had a dream from God, I think you would know it, because usually our dreams are pretty wild sometimes, and there's a bunch of stuff just mashed together.

But God has used dreams. And then the other direct guidance would be the prophet or apostle speaking for God.

So again, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Peter, James, John, Paul.

These men spoke for God. All right. The indirect guidance,

God's word. They said, well, how is that? How is that indirect? Because we have it. It's like right here.

It's speaking to us, isn't it? How is the Bible indirect guidance? Okay. Okay.

It's it's his word. Yeah, it's not God speaking directly to me, right? God spoke directly to Daniel or an angel spoke to Daniel.

The Bible is there. Yeah. And I have to go to it and pick it up and read it. It's not direct.

And the Bible wasn't written. It's for us. Like we can say it is written to us in kind of a general sense, but there's no letter in Scripture addressed directly to me.

Right. But it is for us generally. So God's word would be considered indirect guidance.

The conscience or conviction talked about that providence, just the way things work out.

God is in control and guiding human history and then wisdom and counsel.

We talked about how you should be able to go to someone and talk to them and get advice. Of course, compare it to what the

Scripture says, but these are all ways that we are indirectly guided.

So the paragraph underneath the chart that says direct guidance was experienced during the

Old Testament and early New Testament time periods. Today we see God guiding indirectly.

The Holy Spirit is active in all areas of indirect guidance as part of his ministry in the believer.

So number one, it says guidance through God's word. How does the Psalmist describe

God's word in Psalm 119 105? Your word is a lamp.

Remember this? Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Number two, guidance through conviction. How was Paul stimulated to action in Athens?

That's Acts 17 verse 16. If you remember the sermon from Easter or Resurrection Sunday, remember his spirit was, what's the word, provoked or troubled.

Have you ever been in a situation where you just feel this overwhelming sense that I have to say or do something?

I'm convinced God would have me to do this. Well, that's how Paul felt.

He says his spirit was provoked within him that he was observing the city that was full of idols.

You know, sometimes we become accustomed to the way things are and our conscience can be kind of,

I don't know, dull when we see idolatry and immorality. And let's face it, we live in a kind of a crazy time in 2023 and things that are being pushed and promoted and we can become desensitized to it.

And it becomes normal and that's the danger. And there's a lot of new things we're facing and we kind of react against it.

But if you're born in, let's say someone was born five years ago and this is just what they've always known, yeah, you can become desensitized and that's a real danger.

So I always want to think back, okay, I was born in 1978 and what were the things that were already established back then that I've never known to be different?

And how do you find out what's right and wrong when this is just the way it is and everyone thinks this way and everyone's doing it?

Well, that's where you get into the application of Scripture. You'll read a verse and you'll be like, whoa, that's radical because the world's doing this and the

Scripture says the exact opposite. The world's radical. The Bible's right and the world's wrong.

The Bible's right and everybody else is wrong. But, you know, not everybody's there yet.

That's the way you should look at it. And as you grow, you just accept

God is right and the people that oppose him and his ways are wrong.

Three, guidance through God's providence. What can the believer be confident about regardless of the circumstances?

Romans 8 28, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love

God, those who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8 28, if I didn't tell you this before,

I think this is my favorite verse in the Scripture. I mean, this verse helps me a great deal and I believe in the sovereignty of God when, you know, me or Larry or somebody you hear us say,

God is in control of all things. So, I really believe God is in control of all things and that's what gets me through.

I mean, that's why I have hope because there's not a lot of reasons for hope in the world today, but believing that God really is working all things together, not just for our good, but for his glory.

If you have faith in that, hey, it's all gonna work out. It actually is going to be okay.

So, I love that verse Romans 8 28 on the sovereignty of God. And then number four, guidance through God -given wisdom.

Read Proverbs 2 1 through 11. That was your homework, so you should have already done that.

And it says, what four things will wisdom allow you to discern? What four things?

The hint is, it comes from verse 9. The four things are righteousness, justice, equity, and every good course.

Okay. Righteousness, justice, equity, every good course. I don't get too sidetracked on this, but these are two words we hear a lot today, right?

Justice, inequity. There's like three words that are always together.

Justice, equity. What's the other one? Equality. Tolerance.

Yeah, that's in the mix too. Now, obviously, justice. We want justice.

We want God's justice. Some other people's idea of justice, you know, when they were burning down storefronts and vandalizing things, they were doing it in the name of justice.

Like, it doesn't look like God's justice. And then I mentioned it in a sermon, and then we got our church sign vandalized.

In someone's mind, that was the right and just thing to do. Well, equity.

What does equity mean? Equality. Yeah. Well, these are good words.

That's the thing. And a lot of times, we hear words that, yeah, that's true. That's right. But what's the definition?

I mean, that's the sticking point. How do you define justice? How do you define equity?

And we always have to look to what? We need to look to God and his word to get a proper definition.

Because over time, words change. What a word means right now, they can change the definition in the dictionary.

It could mean something totally different tomorrow, and that's happened. All right. So, what is the result of seeking counsel?

Proverbs 13, verse 10. What is the result? Wisdom. Good.

Proverbs 13, verse 10, says, By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well -advised, there is wisdom.

Okay. By pride comes nothing but strife. You know, proud people can't take advice. There are some people that will simply not listen.

And why is that? Well, they're convinced their way is the right way. And usually, we are convinced that my way is right.

But then sometimes, you have to take a step back and how is that working? How is that compared to Scripture?

How is it working out? But if we never take advice, if we never seek counsel, if we never listen to wise counsel, then we're never going to learn.

And we're never going to grow. So, some people are unteachable because they're just not willing to listen to anyone.

So, when... And I'll just kind of wrap it up with this. When reading the Scripture, this is what

I tell myself. I would encourage you to kind of adopt the same attitude if you haven't already. When you read the

Scripture, when I read the Scripture, again, I say, well, the Bible is right and I'm wrong.

And I have to tell myself this. I am often wrong. My wife tells me this. She's right and I'm wrong.

But she is often right. I've noticed. She really is. But the Bible is always right. So, alright.

Now, there's the application list. One area in which you are wrestling with a decision.

Does anyone want to share? I know it's kind of hard to share in a group. You might not want to.

And if you wrote something down, you want to keep it between you and the Lord, that's fine. But does anyone want to share an area in which you're wrestling with a decision?

Anyone? Okay. Well, if you're not willing to say, then

I can't ask you, does this issue involve God's sovereign will or His commanded will?

Or maybe the third option is, I don't know which one. And then the third question, what should your response be if it involves

God's sovereign will or God's commanded will? Or if you're unsure. Who wants to look up James 1 5?

Unless someone hasn't memorized. Can I get a volunteer? Linda, you're looking up James 1 5?

Okay. And then it asks the question, what action are you going to take?

Because sometimes we don't know if it's God's sovereign will and what God would have me to do.

Let's say somebody is just, you know, this that time of year where people are graduating from college and they say, what should

I do? What town, what city should I move to? What job should I take?

What's the will of God for me in that area? And you know, there's no, there's no real answer biblically.

Because God doesn't tell you specifics like that. That would be His sovereign will. And you have to pray about it.

And God may use your conscience and lead you and put those desires in your heart. Let's see how it works out.

God's commanded will is, you know, thou shalt not. You know, there's some jobs that would be obvious that you probably shouldn't take, you know.

But okay, Linda, go ahead and read James 1 5. Okay, so if you lack wisdom, what should you do?

Ask. Ask of God. And He will. That's one of those verses. It's like God will do this.

It's not maybe. He will do it. All right. So pray about it. Any, anything else or anything someone wants to share?

If not, that'll be the end of lesson number 13, God's will and guidance.

And it'll be the end of the book. So congratulations to the members of this class and finishing the course.

And just consider, you could take this book and you could have like a home Bible study and you could use this book to teach somebody else.

And if you did that, if I'm doing this with you, you could do this with someone else. And if they did it with someone else and on and on and on, we'd have the whole world converted to Christ by the end of the year.

But, you know, something to consider. If that door, if there's a door of opportunity, just pray about it.