Discovering God’s Will from His Word

Listen Online:

Transcript:

We’re going to talk today about discovering God’s will from His Word, if you’d like to turn with me to Psalm chapter 119. Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach through the whole chapter. It is the longest chapter in the Bible, but we’re going to look at just a portion of it today.

As we’ve gone through this series on discovering God’s will, if you’ll recall back, we spent three weeks talking about what we’re looking for, talking about the different aspects of God’s will, and they’re not named in Scripture that it says, okay, God has these three aspects of His will. It’s just as we’re looking at the Bible, looking at the whole of the Bible, and the different things that it talks about God’s will being, and the different ways that God acts, we can see some different places where some different aspects of God’s will at work, and then I just slap names on them. So you can call them whatever you want.

But we talked about God’s sovereign will, because there are some things that God has willed that He sovereignly willed them, and they’re absolutely to come to pass. We saw that in Genesis chapter 1, where God said, let there be light, and there was light, there was no discussion, There was no confusion. God said it and it happened.

But it would be an error to think that that means that God has determined and caused everything that ever happens. Because as we saw in Genesis chapter 3, there was the fall. And God has this permissive will that says, I’m going to allow you a choice, and if you choose not to do or to follow my best, I’m going to allow you to fall or to go this far.

That doesn’t mean God caused it. Because God conveyed his will to Adam and Eve that they were to walk with him in the garden and they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And if all of God’s will was His sovereign will, then that means God either deceived Adam and Eve, or God’s will wasn’t so sovereign after all.

And I prefer to believe He’s got this permissive will where He allows things to happen without causing them. And we saw in Genesis chapter 2 that God has a perfect will that is His best. When He gives us the choice, there’s the permissive will where He allows us, if we don’t choose His best, but there’s also His perfect will where God says, this is my best for you. This is what’s going to bring me the most glory.

This is what’s going to work best for your greater good, for your holiness, for all these things. It’s God’s perfect will. And we spent three weeks talking about the different wills of God and how really the perfect will is the one that we need to focus on.

The sovereign will is going to happen whether we’re involved or not, whether we know about it or not. And if God chooses to reveal it, great. But if not, great too.

The permissive will, if we focus on that, it’s like saying, God, how bad are you going to allow me to be before you rein me in? Not a very godly attitude. What we want to focus on is finding His permissive will.

I mean, sorry, whoa, scratch that. We want to focus on finding His perfect will. God, what is your best for me?

And then we spent the last two weeks talking about some of the prerequisite attitudes, where we need to find ourselves, how we prepare for finding God’s will. We talked about discovering God’s will in obedience. And we talked about Jonah and what was the last thing that God commanded him to go do, and had he done it?

He hadn’t done it, and he had to go do it before he got to discover the rest of God’s will for the situation. And sometimes we struggle to, God, what’s your will? Show me your will.

And God says, I’ve already told you what my will was back here, and you haven’t done it. So sometimes we have to ask ourselves, God, what was the last thing you told me to do? And then we have to go back and obey.

And then last week we talked about discovering God’s will and surrender. We talked about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And how they told King Nebuchadnezzar that our God can deliver us from the fiery furnace.

Our God will deliver us from your hand one way or another. If we get burned up, we’re delivered from your hand. And if he has a miracle happen, we’re delivered from your hand as well.

But one way or another, God will deliver us, and he can deliver us from the fiery furnace if he chooses. But even if he does not, still we will not bow. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had no idea what God’s perfect will was to do there, whether it was God’s will that they be saved from the flames or whether it was God’s will that they be burned up in the flames.

They didn’t know what God’s will was, and yet, because they loved God and wanted God’s will, they submitted to his will before they even knew what it was. And we can learn from that that sometimes when we’re asking God what his will is, why would God tell us what the next step is if we’re not ready or willing to take it? And sometimes we’ve got to say, God, like I quoted from George Mueller, we’ve got to get ourselves to the point of saying, I have no will of my own about this matter whatsoever.

Thy will be done. Once we’ve gotten to that point, then I believe we’re in a good position to go start trying to find God’s will. Sometimes it’s going to take a little digging.

Sometimes it’s going to take a little research, a little wrestling with the Scriptures, a little wrestling in prayer. But it’s not this mystical, hidden, secret thing that we just have to guess at, as so many people think. And a lot of people today have the idea that God’s will, if they can know it at all, it’s something that they have to guess at.

We sit around and say, Oh, God, why don’t you tell me your will? God, what’s your will for this situation? God, what’s your will for my family?

And then we look at the circumstances around us and we say, well, maybe that’s a sign. Well, so-and-so said this, maybe that’s a sign from God that I should do this. Well, my washing machine exploded.

Maybe that’s a sign from God, and I’ve heard that before. Maybe that’s a sign from God that I’m supposed to do this. And we end up acting like God is a deck of tarot cards or Ouija board that we can kind of guess at his will based on the circumstances around us.

And don’t get me wrong, God sometimes does use circumstances to point us in the right direction, but if that’s what we’re sitting around looking for is, God, maybe I can figure out your whole will by the signs and circumstances around me. Folks, we’re looking in the wrong place. Sometimes a washing machine exploding is just a washing machine exploding.

Sometimes somebody telling you, well, I think you ought to do this, it’s just a crazy idea off the top of their head, not a word from God. Folks, if we want to know God’s will, the first place we start looking is in His word. We start looking in this book right here if we want to know God’s will.

If we expect God to just hand us His will, well, this is where He’s handed it to us. We can’t sit around on the couch all day watching TV and expect God to just give us his will by osmosis. Psalm chapter 119 has been called by some one of the orphan psalms, meaning that it doesn’t say within it who wrote it.

And out of my natural curiosity, I did a little digging, and there are various different ideas, but the one that satisfies me best based on their arguments is that it was David that wrote it. I don’t know that for sure, and I’m not going to tell you that that’s a point of doctrine, but both Christian writers and rabbis, conservative scholars, that have looked at this and looked at the clues based on the phrasing and language and all of this say that they think it’s David. I guess it’s probably David, but don’t just take my word for it.

That’s just my opinion. But the writer of this passage says, starting in verse 97, Psalm 119, verse 97, he says, O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. I want to stop there for a minute.

We’re going to go on with the passage in just a minute, but I want to talk about a few things there. He says how I love thy law. Now, this doesn’t mean that the only part of the Bible that we should reference are the first five books.

But at this time, as far as what they had of written, inspired scripture were the first five books of the Bible written by Moses, authored by God and penned by Moses, that were considered the law. And so when he says thy law, he’s talking about the Bible in the form that they had at the end. He says, how I love thy law.

It’s my meditation all the day. And he says again, and he talks about thy commandments. We know that his commandments are found in the law.

Thy testimonies. He had also given them evidences throughout the law of where God had been faithful, of where he kept his word. And he says these things, the law, the commandments, the testimonies, these things are my meditation.

David or the psalmist, whoever you consider it to be, talked about these things being his meditation. talked about meditating on them day and night. That is not, let me say this as emphatically as I know how, that is not the kind of meditation that we think of today, where we sit around in the lotus position, you know, I’m not going to try to do it, I’m not that flexible, but with one leg tucked under the other, and hands up in the air, and chanting mantras, and folks, what we think of as meditation today is an eastern construct that comes from Buddhism and Hinduism that says you need to empty your mind, And you need to focus on this one syllable so you can empty your mind and be filled with the presence of God.

And let Him speak to you directly. Folks, that is not what the Bible is talking about. As a matter of fact, that’s a dangerous practice that opens us up to all kinds of spiritual deception because we start to hear things that we think are God and maybe they are and maybe they’re not.

And we have no way of knowing. The Eastern version of meditation says empty your mind and just experience. What he’s talking about here is filling his mind with the Word of God, mulling it over, digging into it, picking it apart, thinking of it in his mind.

Not emptying his mind, not experiencing God, but learning about God from what he’s written in his Word and filling his mind with God’s Word until it transforms his mind and his heart. That’s the kind of meditation he’s talking about. So don’t get nervous when I say, he says we need to meditate on the Scriptures.

I’m not telling you to go get a yoga mat and go to town. I’m telling you to dig into the scriptures. Memorize it.

Get it into your mind and get it into your heart. He says these things are his meditation continually. Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers. These are some incredible claims he makes. For thy testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast taught me How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

That’s somebody that loves the word of God. They can say they’re sweeter than honey to his mouth. It’s a pleasant thing to be in the word of God.

Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. Thy word, probably the most familiar verse of this passage, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I have sworn and I will perform it that I will keep thy righteous judgments.

We’re going to stop there. This passage indicates that the writer has a knowledge of God, has a knowledge of God’s nature, God’s character, God’s will. And where did he get these things?

He got them from the Word. He got them from the Bible. Now, they didn’t have all 66 books in this day, but what they had was still the Bible in its form then, and he went to God’s Word.

He went to those first five books and any of the prophets or histories that they might have had already at the time, and he got into them, and he studied them. And, folks, the first thing that we can learn from this this morning is that the Bible imparts spiritual truths that deepen our understanding of God and His will. The Bible imparts spiritual truths that deepen our understanding of God and His will.

Now notice I don’t say make us completely understand God and His will. Show me somebody who says they completely understand God and I’ll show you somebody with a big head who’s wrong. Even the smartest among us cannot wrap their minds completely around who God is.

But if we want to have some glimpse of understanding of the truth about who God is, and about His will, we don’t turn to nature. We don’t turn to whatever our minds can devise. We don’t turn to these mystical religious practices like the Eastern meditation.

Folks, we turn to the Bible because it’s through this book here that the truth is imparted. This is, if we want to know what God, if we want to know who God is and we want to know what His will is, why would we go talk to other people who are just like us and on our own know nothing about God except what He has already revealed to us. The Bible talks about God’s law being written on men’s hearts.

We have a conscience. We have some knowledge that God is out there. But as far as any kind of knowledge of who He is and His will, folks were blind.

Why would I go and consult with somebody else? Why would I enter into a case of the blind leading the blind? And go ask somebody who knows just as little as I do when God has told us about Himself.

God has given us 66 books of instruction about himself and his will, straight from his mouth. I won’t say straight from the horse’s mouth because that would be bad. But straight from his own mouth, he tells us about himself.

And so we go to this book because it imparts spiritual truth. What God wants us to know, he’s told us in this book. And I don’t have to go and get together my friends and poll them.

I don’t have to listen to Oprah, thank God. I don’t have to. I know some of you ladies probably watch Oprah, maybe.

And you know what? She’s probably a nice lady, and she’s had some interesting shows, but her views on God are completely off-base. Her views on religion are completely off-base.

I don’t have to listen to her. I don’t have to listen to any other professed expert. Folks, God has revealed himself to us in this book and through his son.

But as far as what we have physically with us today, he’s revealed it in this book. Now, why does it matter in the search for God’s will that he imparts truth in this book? Because this book alone, out of any other source, is an objective standard of truth.

It’s an objective standard of truth. What does that mean? Why do I need an objective standard?

I’ve got an illustration for you. If I can get a couple of volunteers. I’m not going to make you do anything embarrassing.

I’m not going to tie you up. Tell you what, Brother Phil and Brother James, would you all come? I’ll volunteer you.

An objective standard. Say we’ve got some kind of big project going on and we need the measurements to be exact. I’m going to ask each of you, with just what I’ve handed you here, to cut off two feet of this twine.

I want you to get it exactly right. Okay, you want to cut off two feet of twine? Y’all are overthinking this.

You’ve got three feet? Well, we’re in trouble here. And just so you know, I’m not picking on you.

I haven’t practiced this either, but I’ll do it too. Okay, let’s hold them up to everybody. If we need something about two feet, oh goodness.

I may have come in under, huh? These look like they could be close to two feet, maybe. three?

Not too far off. How do we know? We could stand here and argue for days on end.

I think mine is closer to two feet. Maybe he thinks his is. Brother Phil’s already said his is three.

We don’t know. We don’t know. And if the project we’re working on calls for something that’s two feet, we’re going to be in trouble if we don’t have an objective standard here.

Because I can argue and say mine looks closer to two feet. Any of you men ever tried to eyeball anything when you’re building something or fixing something, doesn’t work real well, does it? It doesn’t work.

So we need an objective standard that tells us what two feet is. And mine, I’m pretty sure, is not going to be two feet. Mine’s a little bit.

. . Wow.

Okay, that just about ruined it. I was trying to cut it too short on purpose. I still got it too long.

See, it’s still about an inch and a half over, and if we need an exact measurement, I’m still off. I’m still not right. It doesn’t matter how close.

That’s right. Close but not right. You’re a foot off.

All right. Margaret tells you. .

. tells you that from time to time, doesn’t she? Y’all can keep those as your prizes for helping me.

Thank you. I was trying to cut mine off on purpose, and I couldn’t even do that right, just because I didn’t want to ruin the illustration. Folks, we were all, I was pretty close, an inch and a half, maybe two inches off.

That’s not bad, but I still wasn’t right. In a cosmic sort of way, they were close too. When you take in the scope of the whole universe, a foot off is not that bad, but it’s still not right.

And you know, if we were working on this project that needed of twine, we could have stood there and argued all day and messed up the project and not ever really come to any concrete conclusion about what we were doing. Had no idea what we were doing or where we were going with this project. Because none of us can eyeball two feet exactly.

It was all subjective. It was all how we viewed it. Well, I think this is two feet.

Well, I think that’s two feet when we were cutting it. Folks, we needed an objective for the project. We needed an objective standard to tell us what two feet was.

If it matters for home improvement projects or even intertwined, that we have an objective standard. How much more important is it for the direction of our lives that we have an objective standard? People get upset when we claim that the Bible is infallible, that the Bible is inerrant, that the Bible is authoritative, and all these words just mean that the Bible is perfect and the Bible has final authority because it’s God’s work.

People get upset when we claim that it’s the objective standard of truth, especially if they don’t believe in absolute truth. They get upset about that fact, but folks, we need an objective standard because otherwise we’re all just stumbling around in darkness. And people who reject the Bible as their standard of truth, eventually things are going to go awry.

They’re going to have no idea where they’re going or what they’re doing when life starts to fall apart. Folks, this book right here imparts the truth to us about who God is and what his will is. And there’s no debate with this book.

We can’t say, well, I think what God would. . .

Have you ever heard somebody say, well, my God wouldn’t do such and such? And usually it’s something that God did such and such, and it’s in the pages this book. Well, if everybody’s running around worshiping my God this and my God that, it’s a God of our own design and not the God of the Bible.

And see, if all it is my opinion versus your opinion, we never know who’s right about God or His will. But thank God He’s given us an authoritative revelation here of who He is and what His will is. An objective standard that we measure my attitudes and my conduct by, and your attitudes and your conduct, and the conduct and attitudes of this church and the world at large, and it tells us who God is and who His what his will is and how we measure up against it.

And on the last one, the results are not good, how we measure up against God and his will. See, the Bible says objectively that all men are lost, bound for hell apart from Jesus Christ. Folks, if we don’t have the Bible as an objective revelation, how would we ever know we were lost? How would we ever know we needed a Savior if we didn’t have the Bible telling us, with Romans chapter 1, for example, that every man is without excuse?

See, the Bible’s our objective standard. And some people have said, Some people have said, the Mormon church, for example, says that the Bible, one of their articles of faith says that the Bible is the word of God in so far as it’s translated correctly. Well, folks, we can go back through thousands of years of manuscripts and tell you that this book is translated correctly.

It’s not a matter of in so far, it’s a matter of done. That’s just a way of saying we believe the Bible is the word of God, but not really, not as much as this other book that we have. Folks, the problem is not in translation, although there are translations that are better than others.

The problem is not in the translations and the reliability of what’s come down to us over the years. The problem is in the way we interpret it and the way we handle it. Folks, the Bible is the Word of God, and handled correctly, we can discern God’s will from it.

The problem comes in when we try to handle it incorrectly. Folks, the Bible, when you read it, when you study it, you’ll find that each passage has one meaning, one plain teaching. It’s not something that, oh, it means this to me, oh, it means that to you.

Then it becomes a subjective standard. The Bible has one meaning in its passages. Now, that meaning can apply in various ways, but there’s still one meaning, one teaching to the Bible.

It drove me crazy in youth and college Bible studies. When we’d have Bible study and say, what does this passage mean to you? And I’ve asked that question, and in the last few years I’ve come to realize it does not matter what the Bible means to me.

It matters what the Bible means, what the Bible says and what the Bible means. Now, how that applies to me is a different story. That’s a question to ask.

How does what the Bible teaches apply to you? How does this passage apply to your life? But the Bible has a plain meaning because the Bible is an objective standard that if we handle it and we interpret it correctly, it reveals to us and imparts spiritual wisdom about who God is and what His will is.

Now, with that said, we go to what the Bible reveals about God’s will. We see that, by the way, in the beginning part of this passage, verses 97 through 100. And there’s some overlap on these.

Oh, how I love thy law. It’s by meditation all the day. Thou hast through thy commandments made me wiser than mine enemies.

Because he read the law, because he read God’s word, he was wiser than his enemies. And for any writer of the Psalms, his enemies not only would have been some people that disliked him in his own country, but would have been the pagan countries around that they were constantly at war with. And God had made them wiser than the pagans around them because of his word.

And he also says, I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. Folks, my goal for you all is that you would be smarter than me in God’s word. That I would give you tools to equip you to go and study God’s word for all it’s worth and for you to take off and not have to be spoon-fed every little bit of truth.

If you’re only studying God’s word on Sundays and Wednesdays, you’re not getting enough. But he writes here that because he was in God’s word, he was smarter even than his teachers. And he’s not bragging.

He says, even I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. He’s not bragging here and saying, look at how brilliant and how intelligent I am. He’s saying, I’m wise because of your word, because of the truth that God’s word had imparted to him.

We also see that the Bible, once we’ve nailed down the fact that the Bible imparts the truth, tells us who God is and tells us what his will is for us, then we realize that we can go to the Bible to learn about God’s will. Now, that means when I’ve got a question sometimes that I don’t already know the answer to, God, what’s your will about this? God, what’s the right thing to do here?

We go to God’s Word. But at the same time, we should already be in God’s Word, whether we have a specific question or not, studying to be studying. And I guarantee you that as you’ll study and get into God’s Word, when the situation arises that has need for that particular passage, God will call it to your mind.

I can’t even tell you, I can’t give you examples because there are so many. of times that I’ve studied something and thought, hmm, that’s interesting and put it away. And then months later, I may have forgotten about that passage and a situation arises and that passage comes to mind and it applies perfectly.

And there God’s told me exactly what to do through His Word. Now, whether or not I’ve listened is sometimes a different story. But we learn that we can go to God’s Word and it reveals His will to us.

And in that, the Bible illuminates the pitfalls to avoid. It doesn’t just impart spiritual wisdom. It illuminates the pitfalls that we need to avoid.

And here, starting in verse 101, he says, I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. He says, I’ve not gone down these evil paths. I’ve not followed evil.

I’ve not gone that way. Why? Because I’ve kept thy word.

Because I keep thy precepts. I’m sorry, wrong verse. That I might keep thy word.

I haven’t gone down this way. I haven’t followed evil paths. I haven’t followed the people who were doing wrong and done the wrong thing.

Because I kept thy word. that I might keep thy word. So there’s an instance in here where not only has he just been learning great truths about God and his will that he could store away for later, but they’ve actually taught him something practical that he needed to know, that when the situation arose and he had this choice here that we’ve talked about sometimes between God’s permissive will and God’s perfect will, in which way am I going to choose?

Am I going to choose God’s best for me or am I going to choose how wicked I can be before God reigns me in? And he says, I haven’t gone that way, I haven’t departed, I haven’t followed the evil ways, Because instead, I wanted to keep your word. Because he already knew from God’s word what his will was for that situation.

He didn’t have to stop and say, God, is it okay if I go and sleep around? No, he’s already been in God’s word. He knows that’s wrong.

God, is it all right if I kill somebody just this one time because they sure need killing? No. The Bible teaches against revenge.

The Bible teaches against fornication. The Bible teaches against all kinds of things that if we read the Bible, study it, get into it, put the Bible in our hearts and minds that when the time arises that we’re confronted with the choice to do what’s right or to walk down the path of evil, that we don’t have to stop and study it out again and say, oh God, what do you really want me to do here? We know what God expects from us.

We know what His will is. He’s already warned us about the pitfalls to avoid. There’s a passage, I believe, don’t quote me on this, but I believe it’s in Colossians that talks about walking circumspectly.

I don’t think it’s in Colossians. It talks about walking circumspectly, looking around as we’re walking, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. And he talks about being careful and watching for the pitfalls around us, the temptations, the things that we fall and slide into.

Folks, if we’re reading the Bible, if we’re getting into God’s Word, not only to learn His will about the situations we’re facing now, but to learn His will about situations we’re not even facing yet, He’s going to point out the pitfalls ahead of time, the things that we need to watch out for. The Bible tells us the sin to avoid. We can turn to just about any passage in the Bible.

I kind of sat down last night and practiced randomly turning to some Bible passages and seeing where it does things like this. I’m not going to randomly do that and put myself on the spot this morning. But one of the passages I landed on, saying does the Bible all throughout tell us these things, landed on 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

You know anything about 1 Corinthians? The church in Corinth was in chaos, turmoil, division, immorality going on within the church. And turn to this passage, And turn to that passage last night, and I said, Okay, definitely that teaches us, that illuminates some pitfalls that we need to avoid.

And if I wasn’t dealing with any of these situations, but was just reading God’s Word, soaking in God’s Word, when a situation arises later on that, hmm, maybe I’m tempted to become a drunkard. Wait, no, God’s Word says something about that. It warned me about that.

It says that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God, nor fornicators, nor any of these things. Folks, there’s already a list here. He’s given us some things to look out for.

And if any of these things popped up as an option, as a temptation, folks, I already know what God’s will is because I’ve read it in His Word. It’s already illuminated the pitfalls. Folks, you could go all through Proverbs.

Let me just tell you, if you want to start looking for principles to live by that are God’s will, go start in Proverbs. 31 chapters, just a practical wisdom that tell us what God’s will is, how we’re to behave and how we’re not to behave. But the Bible doesn’t just stop at telling us, God’s word doesn’t just stop at telling us, okay, these are the things you don’t need to do.

The Bible is not just a rule book of thou shalt not. Don’t do this. See, growing up, a lot of people that I went to school with who went to church are now no longer in church because all they ever saw the Bible as, all they ever saw Christianity as, was a list of don’t do this, thou shalt not.

God trying to spoil their fun. Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. It was just a rule book.

Folks, the Bible, in seeking God’s will, it’s not just a book of rules about don’t do this and telling you all the bad things that you shouldn’t do. The Bible actually takes it a step further and as Paul wrote to Timothy, all scripture is given by inspiratio

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Powered by atecplugins.com