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1974. I was on the swim team. I think I was probably swimming 100 IM and freestyle and butterfly. I asked my mom, do you think I'll win? It was an away meet. It was at a pool that was especially hot. And if you're a swimmer, you know you don't really want a hot pool.
Mom said, well, there's probably a way we can figure out if you'll win. Really? What? Swim hard. Do your best. Quick flip turns. So she went over to the closet. Risk. Monopoly. At the top. Holds it out.
Sets it down. Opens the lid. And she got the Ouija board out. She wasn't kidding. For those of you that don't know Ouija boards, praise the Lord. With foolishness, with sinfulness, of course, and neither of us were Christians at the time.
There's only one thing worse than playing with the Ouija board, being regenerate and playing with the Ouija board. And so we put our fingers on there and they have a yes section and no section. And my fingers are on.
Her fingers are on. And you ask the question to the eternal Ouija and you say, will I win the swim meet, the butterfly? And then you don't know if you're supposed to push your fingers over to the yes or to the no, or just to let the vibes go through your hands.
Could there be anything more ridiculous, more asinine, more stupid, than somehow trying to think about the future, the will of God, the will of the universe, God's universe, by some kind of occult divination.
If you turn your Bibles to Matthew 6, we'll see that our Lord is kind and generous and good. So when it comes to the future, His Son will tell us exactly how we're to think about it and to pray for it and to make sure our focus is not on my will, God's will for my life, but on God's will and God's will alone.
Matthew 6, we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount for some time now, and we've come to chapter 6 where we're in the disciples' prayer or the Lord's prayer. This is a book Matthew would probably entitle if you ask him what's one word that would describe this book.
It would be King. Jesus is the King. And he does it in different ways. As a matter of fact, many times he calls Jesus the Son of David. And he's called the Son of David over and over and over so you can understand this royal enthronement of Jesus the King.
But Jesus is not like a king like anyone else because Jesus doesn't just want external obedience. He wants external obedience driven by internal obedience, right? It's one thing to obey on the outside but disobey on the inside.
It's another thing for this king to come along and have him say, I demand internal and external obedience. As a matter of fact, you can see a flavor of that if you look at Matthew 5, verse 20, really the key to unlock the Sermon on the Mount.
It's one thing to go around and be externally obedient. But if you don't have the internal, this great king of the universe who sees everything will not be satisfied. Matthew 5, 24, I say to you, Jesus says, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, the most religious zealot type of behavior that's around, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
And the focus is not just external but it's internal. I'm after your heart. I'm after your soul. I'm after internal obedience. And he goes on to give a bunch of antithetical black and white illustrations of that.
And we've studied those in the past. Matthew 5, verse 21. Just to give you a flavor of what the king is after, the king wants heartfelt obedience. You have heard it said, or you have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder, Matthew 5, verse 22, but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.
So it's one thing to say, I'm mad, and Jesus says, if you're mad, it's like murder. He says the same type of thing in verse 27. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, verse 28, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
So with these six antithetical statements, he's saying it's about internal righteousness. This is a king just not on the outside but he wants the inside as well. And so when we move to chapter 6, the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples and teaches us is now the same type of thing.
It's a prayer that's not just for externals. God, help me to look good on the outside before you, but it's outside and inside. Matthew 6, verses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 are what we call the Lord's Prayer, really the disciples' prayer.
And you remember how it starts off. Pray then in this pattern, our Father who is in heaven. Here's this great God who is a Father, and He's close and personal, yet He's transcendent, He's in the heavenlies.
And then there are six petitions. Three about God's glory, the next three about our good. Three about God and His person and His kingdom and His will and His name. And then three very reasonable and regular requests that any sinful, dependent human being would have.
Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, all concerning itself with God's glory. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and do not lead us in temptation. All our concerns as we would go before this Father who is a king and say, May Your kingdom be magnified, but also we're children and we have needs.
Now we've been working through the first petition, the second petition, and now we come to the third petition. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But you really can't understand the third petition until you understand the first and second petition because they all expand the same idea.
God's glory is to be seen. We're to pray for God's glory before we pray for ourselves. Real internal righteousness given to you by the king will show itself in prayer. External righteousness is, you know, throw God a few bones and then get to the important stuff, you.
But prayer that's internally righteous says, You know, it's not about me, it's about God's name. Hallowed be Your name. God, I want to see Your name hallowed, not blasphemed, to be lifted up. In this world, God, make Your name lifted up.
Well, where's that lifting up to be maximized? It's going to be maximized in His kingdom. There is a kingdom to come. God, You're sovereign now, You're ruling now, You're in charge of everything now, but there's a specific future kingdom to come, a real kingdom where a real Jesus will be there for a thousand years to reign in this kingdom.
God, may Your name be hallowed. It will especially be hallowed in this kingdom. And in this kingdom, there will be heavenly obedience on earth. And one just kind of... If I could draw some kind of arrow like this.
Here, God, may Your name be hallowed. God, to the extent that Your kingdom would come, to the extent that heavenly obedience will be done on earth. That's what Jesus is talking about. God, it's all about You.
Verse 10 is really an amplification, an expression of our desire for God's name to be held in honor. So what would I like to do this morning? Let me give you four quick... Well, forget the quick. Four biblical responses to the prayer, Thy will be done.
When you understand that we're to pray, Thy will be done, and we've memorized it, we understand what the passage is talking about. God, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We understand God's holy will is being done perfectly by the angels in heaven, by the saints in heaven.
That kind of obedience we want on earth. When we understand this, what would be our response? Let me give you four biblical responses that this kind of prayer should give you in your heart. Four biblical responses.
And as I give them, I'll teach you more about the passage. If you can't tell, I'm fired up about this, and so I probably should even put my own notes. Just take a breath. Slow down. Okay, side note. We climbed Mount Mananac yesterday.
I couldn't get my arms around the magnitude of the glory of God. Climbing on rocks and boulders, and I had the three little kids with me, and we were climbing, and we could just see all these evidences of the power of God and the wisdom of God, and then you stand on top of Mount Mananac, and you could see the buildings of Boston over there, Wachusett over there, other things over there.
The kid said, where's New York City? Oh, that way. He can't quite see it. I just couldn't help but think, because people love sin so much, they will have to go, all this came out of nothing, and it's the Big Bang that caused it all.
I thought that robs God's glory. It robs God when you should stand on top of the mountain and yodel to the universe. God created all this stuff so that we might look at it and go, bow down to the rocks.
I love you, rock, and I lift my voice to serve you. No. So that we might see His handiwork and say, look at the Creator of the universe. This is an awesome Creator. God is jealous for His namesake to be hallowed.
He doesn't want any people to compromise or infringe upon that. This prayer sets the tone for that kind of grandeur. It is God's world, and He shows forth His glory in His world, and the desire of one who has internal righteousness should be, God, it's all about you, God and God alone, as Steve Green would say.
How do we respond to a prayer like that? Response number one, be consumed with God's will, not God's will for your life. Number one, what's the response to a prayer that says it's all about God? Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Response number one, forget God's will for your life. There's all kinds of slogans in Christianity. Here's a slogan, what's God's will for my life? That's the wrong slogan. You say, yeah, but it's on a bracelet that looks yellow.
That's fine. It can be on a bracelet, but on the other wrist, people wear God helps those who help themselves. That's also wrong. Another bracelet people wear, God only hates the sin. He doesn't hate the sinner.
We just have the slogan Christianity. Do you know who used to run around trying to find God's will for their lives? Pagans. It's not a Christian thing. What's God's will for my life? It gets to prayer requests four, five, and six too soon.
It's not about God's will for my life. It's about God's will. One man said, with this prayer, we are committing ourselves to learning all we can about God's will. If we say, God, may your will come. May your will be done.
Kingdom come, may your will be done. Well, then what's God's will? And we put the spin on it, well, it's God's will for my life. No. God is the one that has the plan, and we need to find out his plan for our particular life.
Let me give you a little example. How about Job? Did you know Job never found out God's plan for his life? We found out about it because the text told us. Job never till his dying day understood that God's will for his life was to be an eternal object lesson for holy writ, for all believers and unbelievers to see, that God would use Satan to attack Job, and Job would still say, God, your king.
I'd like you to turn to Ephesians 5, verse 17 with me, and I will try to help you understand as a congregation that there's not a command in the Bible to find out what God's will is. Rather, it's to understand what God's will is.
God's will has been told to us in Scripture, and we're to understand that. We aren't supposed to run around trying to find God's will. You're getting warmer. It's not that. First of all, it's too selfish.
It's all about God's name being hallowed, God's kingdom coming, God's will be done, not what's God's will for my life. We'd like to know who to marry. We'd like to know where to live, what job to take.
Those are fine things, but don't confuse that with God's will. What is God's will? First of all, Ephesians 5, verse 17. Paul has been talking about the greatness of Christ in the local church and many other things, and he says in a series of commands, 5, verse 17 of Ephesians, So then do not be foolish.
Stop becoming foolish, basically. It's a present imperative. Just don't do it anymore. You're doing it, but don't do it anymore is what he's saying. But understand what the will of the Lord is. Notice, it doesn't say what the will of the Lord is for your life.
Understand what the will of the Lord is. He says, I don't want you to be foolish. You know what that word foolish means? Foolish, unlearned, unschooled, stupid. You don't want to be ignorant about God's will.
Well, how could he say that? If it's some kind of mysterious will for my life, we don't know the future, but if it's something that God has already told us what his will is, then we just need to understand that.
Don't be foolish. By the way, this word foolish is not the word that means you don't know something. Oh, I don't know. What's the answer to that question? I don't know. Give, uncle. This is the word that means I do know the answer to the question, but I just don't apply it in my life.
I understand very well, but it doesn't flesh itself out in my life. I don't make the connection of my thoughts and my actions. This word foolish means I know the right thing to do, but I don't apply it.
I don't think properly. Do you see the text? But understand what the will of the Lord is. That word understand is a mental calculation. It is a word that says to perceive, to understand, to think. What do we do in Christianity?
God's will for my life. It's mysterious. It's like that fog that you see on those Halloween houses. You're just trying to grasp that. Oh, it's God's will. This has nothing to do with some kind of mysterious mysticism.
This has to do with when you want to think about God's will, think critically, think intellectually, use your mind. Don't be senseless. Use your mind and have a clear perception. You say, if it's something I should know, but I should just study more, what is God's will?
If you wanted to find out what God's will is in this context, what would you do? Where would you find it? I don't know. Where would I go? Any guesses? Paul is assuming they understand what God's will is.
Stop trying to figure it out, but start trying to live in light of it. Where would you go if you wanted to understand what the will of the Lord is if you were reading Ephesians 5, verse 17? Where would the answer be found?
What's God's will? Answer, clear in Ephesians. Let's turn to chapter 1. He already tells us what it is. And this will help us when we pray this prayer, God, I want your will to be done. What's the author wanting us to understand?
What does Jesus intend? Well, here we'll get some insight about God's will. All right, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, gives us this umbrella Trinitarian blessing and praise. This God is to be blessed. And this God is to be blessed for many reasons.
Verse 4, He's to be blessed because of unconditional election, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. And God is to be praised and to be blessed and to be spoken well of because God chooses sinners.
And you say that's unloving. On the contrary, at the end of verse 4 it says, in love He predestined us. Predestination is all about love. Unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His...
Oh, we're getting warmer. According to the kind intention of His will. It's a little glimpse of His will, but no definition yet. Verse 6, to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in Christ the Beloved.
In Him, verse 7, God should be praised not just for election, but also redemption. We have redemption through His vicious, sacrificial death. We call it blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us.
All right, we're coming up to the answer. Paul says in chapter 5, verse 17, you know God's will. Act on what you know. Don't be senseless. Use your mind. What is it about God's will that we need to understand?
What is God's will? The preoccupation should not be what's God's will for my life, where do I live, but it's about God and His supremacy and His exaltation. That's what internal righteousness would pray.
In all wisdom and insight, now verse 9. Are you ready? He made known to us the mystery of His what? Will. Mystery in the Bible often means this. Not mysterious, but something that wasn't known and then now it's known.
There I go shouting again. It wasn't known and then now it's known. Something wasn't known and now we understand it. He made known to us the mystery of His will according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him.
God doesn't just predestine. God doesn't just redeem. But also God tells us what He's thinking. Here's what His plan is. Here's what's going on. He tells us how He did it. He shows us the intricacies of how He got sinners to be saved.
He intended that we take a magnifying glass and focus in on the detail of redemption. That angels, if they will stoop and long to peer into this salvation, as 1 Peter 1 would talk about, so too we should say I've got to just put God's salvation under a microscope because here we have the eternal triune God's plan of salvation and He tells us how He did it.
You can't say I don't know, I don't understand. I don't want to understand election and redemption because I can't know it. You can know it. He says He did it according to the kind intention of His will which He purposed in Him.
And you say this is the greatest story ever told and we're to focus in on what He has done. True or false? There's lots of things we can't know in the universe. True. I have a few questions that God asked Job and there probably aren't any answers to these questions.
Just listen. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who set its measurements since you know? Or who stretched the line on it? Or what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone? Have you entered the storehouses of snow? Or have you seen the storehouses of hail? From whose womb has come the ice? Do you know the ordinances of heaven? Or fix their rule over the earth?
Who has put wisdom in the innermost being? Or has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom or tip the water jars of the heavens? The answer, we know God did it but we don't know how He specifically did it.
But God wants you specifically to know how He came up with the plan of salvation and what the plan of salvation is. It is not undiscoverable. He wants us to discover it. What's the plan? What's the will of God?
How could I say this is the will of God in one sentence? Verse 10. Just keep reading. It tells us what it is right there. What's the will of God that we're not supposed to be foolish about but we're supposed to understand and we're supposed to say, I want God to pray for this to happen today.
Now. May it be. Verse 10 is the answer. This is the will of God that Paul was talking about in chapter 5, verse 17. Not what kind of car we should buy or what kind of shoes are the best or where to shop.
Is it Hannaford or Dumoulis? What do we do? We're talking about major things here. Those are all things we have to deal with, yes. But if we deal with the things on earth with an eye towards God's glory, that's what Jesus is after.
And here, the will of God is found in verse 10. This is the will that God kindly showed us. He purposely showed us. He showed us in Christ. And then it says, verse 10, with a view. Here's the view. We're kind of getting a view now up into heaven.
What does heaven think about salvation? What are the intricacies and the details of salvation from a heavenly perspective? And it's a free show. It's a show for you to look at and to gaze and to wonder with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times.
What's that mean? I don't kind of get that. It's too many big words. I don't understand it. Administration basically means plan. But you don't even have to understand that phrase if you're going to understand the next one because he refocuses our mind and says, that is.
What's the purpose? What's the plan? What's the will? A summing up of all things in Christ. A summing up of all things in Christ. There is sin on earth. There is disorder on earth. There is chaos on earth from our perspective.
There is Satan running amok. There's all kinds of issues. And the will of God is for all those things to be taken and put right side up. No sin, no Satan, no anything else. But the purpose of God is to restore the whole creation under its one head, Christ.
Sinless disorder. Sin and disorder. Ever sinless submission to Christ Jesus. The way history will end. It will end in a certain way. It will end in a purposeful way. The will of God for the universe is to put everything back underneath the feet of Christ.
He says, I want you to study it. Literally, the word summing up there in the New American Standard is to bring together again. To re-reunite. Things were underneath God's feet as it were in the garden, and then God ordained for sin to come into the universe.
And now it's time to step on sin's ugly head and to smash it and to rearrange the universe. And so Paul says, I want you to understand that. I don't want you to say, you know, it's for my life what you really need to be thinking about.
And Jesus brings it to us as well. I want God you to restore the universe. How many people here know computers? Give me a break. I've got to kind of calm down here for a second. Alright. Who knows computers?
Who knows mechanic stuff? A few do. Alright. How about, do you ever defrag a computer? Right? That's not throwing it out the window. But that would work too. God is going to defrag the universe and put everything right, all in order, all so everything works perfectly underneath the head of Christ.
That is the will of God. That's the will of God. All things created originally by God, the world, the earth, animals, demons, and then there's this revolt, Adam's revolt spurred on by Satan and now the prayer is, God make it all right.
Get rid of sin and death and hell and Satan and demons and trouble and toil and sweat and thorns. Make it right. Would that be a good prayer to pray? Versus, well God, you know, I've got that six cylinder car and I'm really needing that four cylinder.
I mean, it just seems like it's this whole C .S. Lewis thing. We're over here playing in the sandbox with mud when the castle's over there and we can go. Ephesians 5 is basically, we understand what the will of the Lord is.
That's to put everything at the feet of Jesus. This is messianic language. So then if you understand it, then pray for it. God's gracious saving plan. God has showed you from the Scriptures, His eternal triune saving program.
You could never figure it out without the Scriptures, but He's revealed Himself to you in the Scriptures. And since He has, study that. Focus on that. Be consumed with that. And don't you think He'd take care of every other real decision that's in your life?
Of course He would. Go back to Ephesians 5 .17 for a minute, but understand what the will of the... Say that next word. Lord. Why do you think the word Lord is there instead of Savior? Because this is the King.
26 times in Ephesians, Lord is used. Always of Christ. Let's understand what His will is about. This King. And it probably shouldn't shock us that we've turned God's will into a catchphrase that revolves around us.
And so Jesus in kindness and in love and as a wonderful King, the King comes along and says, now when you pray, you pray to a Father who's got His name at stake. Who's got His kingdom at stake. Who's got His will at stake.
And forget about all your minor decisions. Those are good to pray for, but let's focus on God first, because that shows a heart of internally changed. An internally changed person would pray like that.
Then you can say to yourself, will my decision that I have to make on earth help or hamper God's eternal decrees? That is to say, would it fit underneath God's bringing up everything under Christ again?
Or is it not a good decision? Would this plan, would this strategy that I have, this moving, this marriage, reflect Christ's glorious salvation? Or would it take away from that? Would this prayer say this?
Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. Turn with me if you would to 1 Peter 4. I can give you a little bit more of this idea. You say, this is kind of hard to get your mind wrapped around.
If you remember this, when we go to the Father, we pray to a good Father and we say, God, Your name is at stake. May it be hallowed. God, Your kingdom is at stake. Make it come quickly. Lord, Your will is at stake.
What's Your will? It's not my plans for my life. It's about the redemption found in Christ Jesus and everything getting put straight back together again. So we should be consumed with God's will, not God's will for our lives.
1 Peter 4. You get the idea here that Peter sat underneath Jesus Christ and it fleshed itself through here. 1 Peter 4 .1. Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.
So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lust of men, but you need to live for the will of God. For the time has already passed. It is sufficient for you to have carried out the desires of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.
And in this all they are surprised that you do not run with them in the same excess of dissipation. And they malign. But they shall give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
God, I want to live for You. God, I'm going to pray. May You have Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your gracious saving plan. One of the things you could do if you like homework, if you want to start focusing with a magnifying glass on God's eternal will, get a little book by John Murray called Redemption Accomplished and Applied.
John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. You'll begin to study how through Jesus Christ things are going to be set right side up, and as you focus on that, everything else will be perceived properly, whatever decision you have to make.
John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Number two. How do we respond to such a prayer? Well, we respond firstly with saying, I'm going to consume myself with God's will, not my will. Number two, study God's revealed will.
Study God's revealed will. I don't know about you, but I like preachers that give me a little conviction. So I read this quote from D .A. Carson, and it convicted me, so now I treat you with the grace of conviction.
Ready? It pains me to hear Christians insist on the authority and infallibility of scriptures if those same Christians do not diligently work at learning the scriptures. What are the themes of Zechariah and Galatians?
What do we learn of God's will from Exodus and Ephesians? How do the portraits of Jesus painted by Matthew and John differ from and complement each other? In studying God's will, what have we learned this week that has prompted improvements in our lives?
By His grace, I will do this, His will, as much as I know it. In other words, when we pray, God, may your kingdom come, we should say it's all about you and your kingdom, Lord. God, may your will be done.
May your sovereign will be done about putting everything back underneath Christ. But there's also an aspect of the will of God that says, this is the will of God. Would it be fair for me to say, the verses that say for the church to do this and that would be God's will?
So I think we should probably study that. How about this? Lots of people are getting side businesses these days. Let me give you a spiritual side job. Side business. A man from Northampton. I think you'll know who he is.
Every Christian should make a business of endeavoring to grow in the knowledge of divinity. All teaching is vain without learning. If there were a great treasure of gold and pearls accidentally found and opened with such circumstances, that all might make it worth his while to make a business of gathering them, what would happen?
God hath never made it His duty of some to take pains to teach those who are not obliged to take pains to learn. He hath not commanded ministers to spend themselves in order to impart knowledge to those who are not obliged to apply themselves to receive it.
I thank the Lord that I've been given a congregation that loves the Word. If we're going to pray, God, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, let me understand, first of all, Your will, Jesus, summing up of all things in Jesus, and second of all, everything in the Scripture that says for me to do, I need to know it.
I should study it. You ever watch birds? I never used to watch birds. I thought bird watching was for kind of sissies and people a little older than myself. I used to think that. Now I like to watch birds, because they can teach you a lot.
We'll get to that in Matthew 6 a little bit. But if you watch baby birds, how do they receive that regurgitated worm from the mother? Does the mother have to pry open the mouth? No. They've got wide open mouths.
And it would be wrong for us to pray, Jesus, you taught me to pray, well, Jesus taught me to pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and I don't really need to study God's Word.
It's all going to happen anyway. I wish this was the case for me. But Spurgeon gave another example. He said, they are like people who are sitting at the reading of a will. Can you imagine you get called in, one of your relatives died, you didn't even know you had that relative, and there's millions and millions of dollars, and you sit there in a circle of ten people, and they say your names on it, to what degree would you listen?
Ah, whatever's on there is on there. It's ordained. It's fatalistic anyway. They never really liked me. Etc. God, I want Your will to be done on earth. Well, God has told us what His will on earth is now.
Then we ought to be studying it. Colossians 3, verse 16. Let the Word of Christ, what? Richly dwell, with extravagance in full measure. This, by the way, is not a time for me to scold you. This is a time for me to commend you.
Bethlehem Bible Church, I am praising the Lord that you love the Word, and you want to study, and you would receive bread for the hungry, like those that Spurgeon talks about. Back to the conviction. Bruce Waltke.
To the many Christians who spend trying to divine the will of God, I ask, ready? How much time have you spent reading the Bible? You say, oh, I have to make a huge decision. Remember what I say? If you have a huge decision to make, I have a special Bible book for you to read.
Remember what I tell people to read? If you've got a major decision, the massive decision of all massive decisions, I usually like to say, you should read this book. What's the book? No, I mean a Bible book.
I usually say 1 Kings. I don't even really remember what's in 1 Kings. Okay, that's an exaggeration. But I just know, here's Kings, here's Samuel, here's Chronicles, a theological perspective of God and people.
If you have to make an important decision, what would be the best thing that you could do is to remember that God has a program with people, here's how He deals with people, and I ought to immerse my mind into the Bible so I would make a decision that pleases God, so I would know who God is and how He deals with people.
Saturate your minds with the Bible, about His will, His plan. Number three, time's moving. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. One, be consumed with God's will. That would be a good response.
Two, study God's revealed will. Now, number three, obeyed what He has revealed. You say, okay, things are going on in my world, I need to make some important decisions. Well, push those decision-making things to the side for a moment and say to yourself, it's all about God and His kingdom.
It's all about me immersing my mind into Scripture and now doing what I know. Obey what God has revealed. Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians 5, please, and let me just give you one of the illustrations of knowing what God's revealed will is so that we might do it.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5. You'll find the focus in the Scriptures is not finding God's will, but doing God's will. We already know that God's will is ultimately summing up Christ, but also there's some of His revealed will.
While we're doing that, while we're waiting for that, that we actually should do. And I like it because it's just very plain and clear. It could say anything, do this, and we would know it would be God's will, but sometimes the Lord lets us in on a phrase like God's will to help us.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 16. You know what God's will is for your life? Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for what? This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
How much time do we waste? What's God's will for my life? What's God's will for my marriage? What's God's will for my work? What's God's will for my school? What am I going to do? Well, don't become paralyzed with not doing something, but say, Lord, I'm going to have to look to You, and while I'm looking to You, I'm going to obey.
Thank You for this quandary. Thank You for this trouble. I don't know if I do it all the time. Well, of course I don't do it all the time, but I know I'm acting internally righteous when I have bad things happen in my life, and I say, God, thank You for those.
God, I'm losing the job. Thank You. God, I've lost the job. I'll never forget, as long as I live, I was in corporate America at seminary trying to pay all the bills, and I get this phone call. The boss's boss's boss for this big medical company wants to talk to you at LAX Conference Center.
Do I need to bring anything, or reports, or sales quota, and all that? No, you don't need to bring anything. Just come. Oh, I could tell. There's just that huge Damocles. I know I'm just going to get it.
So I drive up, kind of cotton-mouthed, thinking I've got a brand-new baby. Haley's just a little. Walk in the room, and my boss was white, shaking with the coffee. Do you want a cup of coffee, Mike?
And I thought, I'm done. Well, long story short, they said, you know, there's no longer a position for you. We have two sheets of paper here. Sheet number one, if you sign this and you say you won't sue us, we'll give you 20-week severance and a package.
If you sign this one, you can sue us, and here's your two-week check. You can guess which one I took. I sued them. No, just kidding. I took the 20-some weeks. And then they said, by the way, we have a psychologist on staff.
We'd love to talk to you if you think you have any emotional needs. Everything in me wanted to go, I'm the counselor. I know the Bible. God's sovereign. And then they said, by the way, we need your car today.
My company car, I got all my stuff in it. Yeah, clean out your stuff, and you get a Hertz rental for a week. All right. Cleaning out the car. I couldn't believe it. I knew I was probably going to get let go.
So I had another job interview later that day. But now I'm running late because I have to clean out the car. No cell phones at the time, or who knows, the company took that away too. And so I had to go to this pay phone in Santa Monica, and I'm on the phone having the phone interview with the new boss, potential candidate.
Hey, story's almost done. You know, tell me why I should hire you, and you don't know what to do as a Christian. You brag and say, oh, I'm so great, and all that stuff, and that's why I'm out of a job, and blah, blah, blah.
Well, I kept in my thinking to myself, listen, I've been taught the sovereignty of God. It's time to live it out. Two days earlier, I had a little book called Romans 8, verse 28 by Thomas Watson, The Divine Cordial.
And I pulled it off my shelf, and it was all about God's sovereignty. And I said to myself, you know what, if I read this, God's going to make me live this out. And I put it back on the shelf. I'm not kidding.
And I thought, that's sure stupid. So I pulled it out and read it, and two days later, fired, there goes my car, here comes a psychologist, and there I stand on the pay phone. I thought, you know, the Lord is really going to work this out.
I have to be diligent, but he's going to work it out. And it was a windy day, and all of a sudden, I saw that corner of my eye, dollar bill floating by. I thought, I'm either going to lose this interview.
Excuse me, sir, I've got to go get a ten dollar bill. And I go, who cares? God's in charge of all this. I need the ten now. Dropped the phone, just let him keep talking. I walked over and got the ten dollars, and I go, that is awesome, God provides.
Ten bucks in the hand. Thank you, Lord, that I lose my job, that I would have to really see if I trust you. If I really now, I could, you know, take care of myself, but I have a wife. I have a five month old.
And this is going to elicit a laugh, but it was true. I have an adjustable rate mortgage. What am I going to do? God's faithful, and God provided. I say to myself, you know, so often, I can get sidetracked into, I wonder what is going on.
Why is this happening? And then I forget to do what I'm told to do, and that is, God, your job is the wise. My job is the response. God, I thank you that you would do this. You have planned it. I thank you for this trouble.
I thank you for this trial. I thank you for this issue. I thank you for this surgery. I thank you for this financial issue. How many people so far, by raising of hands, God, I thank you that the stock market has tanked, and now people have to trust in you more.
Some have. Wow, good. In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. And see, the two fit together. If God is sovereign, and He's going to defrag the universe, and put everything up under Jesus' feet again, all these other things will work out and be a part of that, and so I can say, I'll be busy to do what I'm responsible to do, but I'm not responsible for all these other things.
So I'm to have joy, I'm to have prayer, and I'm to be thankful. So what we need to do is study the Word of God, and when it says something to do, we have to do that, instead of spending all our time pontificating on what could happen.
A verse that I love, captures the essence of what we're to do. 1 Samuel 3 .19, So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, now listen, and let none of his words fall to the ground. God, you told me something, and I'm not going to let one of your words come out of your mouth, without me accepting them and doing them.
I'm not going to let one of your words fall to the ground. That should be our attitude. James 1 .22 says, But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely auditors who delude themselves. Well, next week we're going to look at very practical ways that we can make a decision.
We're going to look at the five points of decision making. Not total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. Not sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola Christa, sola fide, sola Deo gloria.
Not those five points, but five other points. I'm going to give you five points. So from now on, if somebody asks you, Is that church a five-point church? You can say, yes, it's a five-point church.
If you don't like what the elders already believe about soteriology, then you can say, yeah, we're a five-point church. Because the scriptures do give us lots of detail on how we would make decisions in light of God, summing up all things under Christ Jesus, which is the will of God.
It gives us things that we're to do from scripture that will fit perfectly underneath that great restoration. And we won't have to look at Ouija boards. We won't have to look at livers, water. You know what?
I still have a little bit of time. Tune in with me to Ezekiel. I just thought some of you have driven a long way and I'm only 44 minutes into the sermon and you think you're getting ripped off, so let me just show you what we're...
We didn't have any baptisms today. By the way, if you need to get baptized, I left that baptism full. Scott Farah put some bleach in it. It is God's revealed will that if you call yourself a Christian, you are to get baptized.
It is God's will for your life. As God sums up everything underneath Christ Jesus, you say, I'm under the conviction that I must believe and be baptized. That water is to be used. I don't mean I'm a prophet and know anything else, but we want to obey God.
And what we'll find is the grace of God and the goodness of God so we don't fall into idiotic things like Ouija boards and this. Ezekiel 21 .21. Can you imagine using arrows to figure out what God's will is?
Put a bunch of arrowheads in the quiver, shake them up, throw them on the ground, and then read them. Oh, that's what God's will is. Verse 21. By the way, that's rhabdomancy. For the king of Babylon stands, Ezekiel 21 .21, at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination.
He shakes the arrows. And praise the Lord, we don't have to stoop to that. God tells us what to do. What else does he do instead of whirling arrows around to figure out what the gods decide? He consults the household idols.
What else does he do that God has delivered us? If he gives us the greatest gift, Christ, he'll give us everything else. Studies the liver. Look at verse 21 of chapter 21 of Ezekiel. He looks at the liver.
He looks at the liver. If you're a pagan, you go intelligence, IQ, and everything's found in that liver. And let's take out the liver and now we'll go to school and we'll have liver 101. And we'll figure out how to study this liver.
It's the heaviest organ. Therefore, the brain must be in there as well. And we'll figure it out. By the way, Asher Bannipal I, he had a lifelong obsession slaughtering thousands of sheep in times of trouble to figure out what the liver said.
And for us, God wouldn't let us stoop to arrows, to idols, or to livers. He's going to show us from the Word of God how do we make decisions in light of the universe being set underneath Christ Jesus and His feet.
That's next week. Let's pray. Lord, it's good to be with other Christians, to hear Your Word go forth. No IRS people storming in. Nobody bombing the building. Just even not that many years ago, the machine guns that go off in St. James Church in Cape Town, killing people.
You've given us freedom. Freedom from the government so that we might proclaim the truth. And I pray that the Word would run swiftly today. I pray that we would be known as a people, individually and as a church, that we're more concerned about, Father, Your glory in Your Son's name than we are about our status in life, or where we live, or what we do, or how things happen to us.
Lord, we'd acknowledge and I'd acknowledge that we're sinful, I'm sinful and left to myself. I'll just flesh that out and be selfish. So Lord, use Your Word today that we might be consumed with Your name, Your kingdom, and Your will.
For Your glory. Amen.