How Do We Know God's Will? | Theocast Clips

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We're so mired in the weeds of some wisdom decision that we jettison the most basic truths in the universe.

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Transitioning into a perspective of God's will, I will state this and then we will argue it.

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You can absolutely know God's revealed will in clarity, comfort, and never wondering.

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There is the secret will of God, and I think that is your death, your destiny, where you might end up.

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Those are the things that are up to the Lord, and you don't need to know those things. You can know one thing.

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God never fails, and I will say this, God's will is always for our good.

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Romans 8. God's will is always for our good. So we need to remember that, that God has us,

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He protects us, and He says nothing will separate you because what's the ultimate good? God loves us. That's the ultimate good.

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He says nothing will separate you from my love, and therefore, if I love you, I'm going to do what's good for you, and we can trust that.

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The ultimate goal of the scriptures as it's revealed,

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God's plan, is that we would live with Him in the new heavens and the new earth where we would see

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Christ. We would be with one another. We would not only love one another perfectly, but we would love the Lord perfectly.

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In a world where there's no sin, no evil, no wickedness, no pain, no suffering. That's the goal.

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God's purposefulness, as He's revealed it to us, is to accomplish that goal in us and to bring us there.

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When you say that God's will for us is for our good, that's what we mean.

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We can trust those promises because we have been called to a certain hope that's unshakable, and we've got to work from that backwards in this conversation.

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Justin Perdue That's right. I'm going to steal from the Westminster Catechism, the Shorter Catechism, and then we're going to go to Colossians, and then we'll kind of move from there.

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Justin, the Shorter Catechism says, what is the chief end of man? That we would glorify God and enjoy

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Him forever, which I think is an amazing summary of Scripture. We can look at Psalm 37,

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Philippians 2 .2, rejoice in the Lord always and again as you rejoice. Let all the nations come and give glory to the

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Father. But one of the things that's interesting about even the story of redemption, when you start in the book of Genesis in the garden,

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God reveals His will to Adam and Eve, right? They walk with Him in full fellowship. They're in full communion with the

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Father, and they live in constant glorying to Him because to glorify God is to reflect His nature through obedience and through praise.

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So they do this. They walk with Him. They enjoy His creation. And then there's this one rule, right? Don't eat of the tree.

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And what does Satan offer Adam and Eve? They offer Adam and Eve their own will.

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He says, you can just be like God. You can actually, instead of living underneath God's will, you can be in equal power with Him and live under your will, just eat the fruit.

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And from that moment forward, the moment they decided to choose their own will for their life, that became part of our curse.

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Because what is it that we constantly live in? Rebellion against God, resisting His will, and doing what?

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Our own will according to the flesh. And that's what I was going to say. The flesh is what you're talking about.

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That's right. So we naturally are born selfish, seeking our own desires.

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And you know, James says it this way, you have not because you ask not. And when you do ask, you ask according to your own, to fulfill it upon your own passions.

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So what's interesting is that the entire Christian life is designed to be about living the

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Father's will. I love this from Jesus. He says, my life is sustained.

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My food is to do the Father's will. So literally when the disciples say, teach us to pray.

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And Jesus says, what does He say, right? Glory to God. This is the Westminster Confession.

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And what's the second part He says? Thy will be done, right? He says, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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That's for the glory of God. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. The opening of our even prayer life is centered on the will of God.

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So then the question has to be, what is the will of God? And we can go back and use a great summary of saying

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God's design for our life is that we would glorify Him and enjoy Him. So I'm going to go to Colossians now, and then

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I'll throw it over to you, Justin. Sure, man. So Colossians, Paul says this in his opening letter, chapter 1, verse 9.

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And so from the day we have heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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So therefore, according to Paul, you could actually know it because he wouldn't pray for that if it couldn't be possible, right?

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So he says, you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk in a manner worthy of the

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Lord. That would be for His glory, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy.

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That's the enjoying part of God. So Paul is saying, I want you to be filled with God's will.

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And in response, you are going to have to fight against your own because what is our natural desire, right?

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To praise ourselves. This is why the gospel says, so that no one may boast and to please ourselves.

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And Paul is saying, my prayer constantly is that you know God's will and from it, you will glorify

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God and you will find satisfaction because joy is ultimate satisfaction. Few thoughts here.

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Biblical things, high level things. John chapter six, this is a wonderful statement about the will of God.

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Jesus says that He's come down from heaven not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent me. He's talking about His Father.

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And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

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So the Father's will is that Jesus would save His people. That's right. Next verse, for this is the will of my

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Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise

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Him up on the last day. You can't help but think about what words later on in John's gospel that these things were written so that we would believe in Jesus, who is the

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Son of God. So we want to talk about the will of God at the most basic level as it has been revealed. It's that we would look upon the

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Son and trust Him for the forgiveness of our sins and for our righteousness. So that we might then be rescued from our corruption and from our sin, and that we might be raised up on the last day to dwell with God forever.

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So that's huge. A couple other thoughts, though. Just once we have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, like, well, bro, how should we live?

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How should we think? Here's a good word from Romans 13, beginning in verse 8. Oh, no one anything, says

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Paul, except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet.

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And any other commandment, that's wild, and any other commandment are summed up in this word.

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You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

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Really quickly, Galatians 5, he says, for freedom

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Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Meaning, don't go back to the law as a means of righteousness.

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Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ, you would who be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. And then he goes on to say, you were called to freedom, brothers.

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Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

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For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another.

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These are just examples of things that we could read. I mean, there are so many passages, John. The point of all this is what?

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Trust Christ. Consider his law, particularly in how he exhorts us to love neighbor. You know, in terms of our life on earth, we demonstrate our love to God through our love to neighbor.

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And remember that we've been set free in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't need to wig out about the law and about ceremonies and rites and days and feasts and all these things.

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We can calm down. And then remember that we've been set free in Christ from all things. We're under grace, not law now.

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The law guides our lives, but we're not condemned by it. And remember why we've been set free.

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We've been set free unto righteousness. We've been set free unto love. And so if we're considering these things in the decisions that we're trying to make in life, we are inside the will of God, no doubt.

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And I don't often, I don't know that you, I mean, at least in my life, as I've talked with people about discerning the will of God, about God's will hunting, right?

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These are not the kinds of things people are saying, because it's either assumed that that's there or it's not even in the calculus because, you know, we're so mired in the weeds of some wisdom decision that we kind of jettison the most basic truths.