Discovering God’s Will through Prayer

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If you haven’t been here in a few weeks, or if you haven’t been here before at all, we are approaching the end. Next week will be the last in the series. We’re approaching the end of a series called Discovering God’s Will.

And it’s been my hope as we’ve gone through this series that we would realize that God’s will is knowable. That God’s will is not the great mystery that we often imagine it to be. Now, sometimes we will have to dig a little bit into the scripture.

Sometimes we’ll have to seek God’s will a little bit. But God’s will, by very definition, is the thing or the things that God wants to happen. And so it stands to reason that if these are the things that God wants us to do, then He’ll tell us what those things are He wants us to do.

The Bible’s clear that we can’t figure out the ways of God on our own. The Bible’s clear that the things that we ought to do, we can’t do. Can’t do consistently, at the very least. God, from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, revealed His will to Adam and Eve in a very simple way.

You realize the first set of rules that God set down for mankind, we think God’s law is just a list of do’s and don’ts to destroy our fun, but if we look at what God’s perfect will was in the very beginning, what God said, this is the very best for mankind, what His will was that He had created this perfect garden of Eden in His creation that He had made in six days and said it’s good, and then on top of that He made this wonderful perfect garden, planted it for Adam and Eve, put them in it, and said, you’re to tend the garden, you’re to have dominion over these things, and you’re supposed to walk with me. And the one rule he gave them was not to eat the fruit from that one particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We didn’t have whole books of laws.

We didn’t have whole lists of laws. There was one rule that God said, if you can follow this, you can walk with me, have this perfect fellowship with me, have this wonderful earthly paradise, have a perfect relationship with one another, can have a great life, just follow this one rule, follow my will. And folks, we could not even manage to follow that one rule.

We no longer live in a perfect world. We live in a world full of sin. We live in a world where it’s much harder to discern the things of God, especially on our own, that we have fallen into sin and we just, quite frankly, are not capable of perfectly following God’s will.

As a matter of fact, I think a lot of times we’re not even capable of knowing just on our own what the right thing is to do as far as God’s concerned. And so God gives us principles in Scripture. God gives us things so that we will know His will.

We’ve talked about the fact that God has a perfect will for us. Now, God’s perfect will, if you’ve not been here for the series, are the things that when God gives us a choice, the choice to do what God wants and what His best is, is God’s perfect will. On the other hand, on the other side of that choice is God’s permissive will.

When God says, if you choose not to obey what I’ve commanded, if you choose not to follow what’s the best I have for you, I will allow you to disobey, and I will allow you to go the other way, but you’re only able to because I allow it. That doesn’t mean God causes us to sin. That means God allows us to sin.

And we started off with God’s sovereign will. God does have a sovereign will. There are some things that God wills sovereignly, and by definition, that means it’s going to happen.

It has to happen. Because if He sovereignly wills it, God’s in charge, and He can say it. As in the example when He said, there be light.

And there was light. There’s no discussion. There’s no debate.

There’s no question about it. He just says it, and it happens. So God has this sovereign will.

But that doesn’t mean that God determines and makes everything to happen that happens. See, God created mankind, I believe, with a free will. And we’ve talked about these with the first three chapters of Genesis.

And what we want to find is God’s perfect will. Because God’s sovereign will, even if He chooses to reveal it to us at times, God’s sovereign will does not require our knowledge or approval. God’s sovereign will happen just because he’s sovereign and he says so, and it doesn’t matter if we ever know it or not. God’s permissive will is not something we necessarily need to seek either, because it’s like a child saying, Mommy, Daddy, how bad will you let me be before you rein me in?

Folks, as a child of God, as somebody who’s concerned about pleasing God, our attitude should never be, God, just how much are you willing to let me get by with? How much bad are you willing to let me do before you yank the leash? Our goal needs to be God’s permissive.

. . I said that last week, too.

Our goal needs to be God’s perfect will. When He gives us a choice to seek what His best is for us. Now, to be very clear, that’s not always what’s necessarily going to feel like is best. It’s not necessarily going to look best, but trusting that God can see beyond what we can see, and God knows beyond what we can know, trusting in Him that what He says is ultimately best for us.

And we’ve learned over the last couple of weeks that before we really can say, God, I’m seeking your will, we have to be obedient. God, what’s your will for this situation in my life? And we wonder, God, why won’t you tell me what your will is?

Why can’t I find your will for this situation? When he’s told us what his will was for something already, and we haven’t listened to the last thing he told us. And we looked at Jonah’s story and the responsibility to ask ourselves, God, what is it you’ve already told me to do, and have I done it?

Before we expect God to entrust us with any more of his will about the future, We need to make sure we’ve been obedient to the things he’s already told us. Then we looked at the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and the need sometimes to surrender to God’s will before we even know what it is. Because sometimes we’ll ask God, what’s your will for this situation?

And what we’re really asking is, God, am I able to trust you in this? God, is this going to work out well for me? And sometimes if we really trust God and want him to entrust us with the knowledge of his will, We have to say, God, I have no will about this whatsoever.

All that matters is your will, and I’m willing to submit to it whatever it is. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they had no idea whether or not God would deliver them from out of the flames. And yet they told King Nebuchadnezzar, our God can deliver us from the fire.

Our God will deliver us from your hand one way or another, but even if he does not, meaning even if he can deliver us from the flames, but even if he does not, still we will not bow because we know God’s will is not for us to bow before your statue. And so sometimes as we’re seeking God’s will, it requires us to submit to it out of trust in him before we even know what it is and say, Lord, please show me your will. And by the way, whatever you show me, I’m willing and I’m committed to do.

Folks, that’s not an easy thing to do. And as I say that, I’m not telling you that I’m perfect at it either, but it is what we ought to strive for. And then last week we talked about, we began talking about some steps to determining God’s will, to discerning God’s will.

And the First was that we discover God’s will through his word. We discover God’s will through his word. Oftentimes we’ll sit there and look for signs and look for circumstances and say, God, what is your will?

And just expect that it’s going to slap us in the head. I think of it like, I’ve asked you all this before, and most of you said you’ve never seen it before, but I remember a few years ago they had commercials for Golden Corral. And I love these commercials because people would sit around and say, you know, what are we going to do for dinner? And they’d have no idea.

And they looked like little angels, little chefs dressed with angel wings. Anyway, they were tiny little people, chef’s hat and angel wings. And they’d come up behind the person with a frying pan, cast iron skillet, smack them in the head.

And as soon as the people snapped back like a Pez dispenser, they’d say, I think I’m going to Golden Corral. Sometimes we expect God’s will to be revealed to us in that way, that he’s just going to smack us upside the head and we’re going to suddenly get it. God can do that if he chooses. God can reveal his will to us without any effort on our part.

but we can’t use that as a cop-out and get lazy and say, well, I’m just trusting that God will tell me things when God has already told us things in 66 books of His revelation. God’s already given us His will. And if He chooses to give it to us by osmosis, that’s His business.

But in the meantime, we ought to be busy studying His Word to determine what His will is and the principles by which we ought to live our lives in situations. This morning, I want to talk to you about discovering God’s will through prayer. Discovering God’s will through prayer.

Prayer is not necessarily just asking God for things. Now, for a long time, we’ve gotten in a habit, Christians and even non-Christians who believe in God, have gotten in the habit of thinking that prayer is just asking God for things. If you look at our prayer list a lot of times, we’re asking God to do things for our benefit.

And a lot of people will pray for things like we pray for at church, for healing for people, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But God, heal my loved one. God, help me feel better.

And God, help me do better at work. Lord, would you help me with my bills this month? Would you help me afford that new car?

God, would you bless me with it? And we begin to just take God basically a Christmas list of things that we would like to do and like to have. And people have started speaking out against that, rightfully so, but I think they’ve gone to an extreme.

Where a lot of times what we’ll hear in churches is that it’s completely wrong to ask God for things for ourselves. that it’s completely wrong to ask God to do things. Folks, we don’t want to get in the habit where our prayer life is just, God, here’s my list today of what I want you to grant.

But folks, at the same time, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong if there’s something really weighing on you, something really weighing on you that only God can take care of. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with taking those things before God. The Bible talks about taking our petitions before God.

Folks, if your car is on its last leg, and you don’t know how you’re going to get to work to support your family, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking God to sort out your car situation. The problem is when that’s our whole prayer life. God, I want a new car.

God, I want a new house. Prayer is also for things like getting closer to God, understanding God’s truth. It’s also for things like getting our will in line with God’s will, praying until He creates a change in our hearts.

This morning I want to talk to you about discovering God’s will through prayer. A lot of the ideas that I’ve come to in the last few years about discerning God’s will have come from a man named George Mueller. I’ve talked to you all about him before.

I don’t know everything about George Mueller because I’ve just started studying him in the last year or so. And so if you know something about him that I don’t think I agree with every aspect of his theology, but what I’ve read of him, I like, and I’ve mentioned some things to you. I want to read you this just very quickly.

He has six points here on how to know God’s will. Number one says, I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own. I’ve talked to you about that one before.

To get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in a given matter. When you’re ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever it may be, nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome. If we can say, God, I want to do your will, and I’ve gotten to the point where I have no will of my own whatsoever on the matter.

In other words, God, I’ve surrendered to what your will is. George Mueller says, nine-tenths of the work is done. Now before I go on with this, if y’all are asking who is this man he’s quoting, George Mueller was a Christian evangelist and humanitarian who lived in the 1800s.

George Mueller started orphanages that took care of over 10,000 orphan children in Britain. And he did it because he felt the Lord led him to. George Mueller started over 117 Christian schools.

He started 117 Christian schools in Britain. and over 100,000 children received a Christian education as a result of his work. And then, not one to retire, at the age of 70, he went into full-time missions.

He started traveling around the world. They said that from the time he was 70 on, the man traveled over 200,000 miles preaching the gospel to people who’d never heard it before. Somebody who was intimately familiar with the will of God and how it applied to his life.

As I said, I don’t know everything about him, but what I’ve read seems to be a godly man who knew God’s will. I think he’s got some things he could teach us. The first thing was that he’d get his heart into such a state that it had no will of its own on a matter when he’d ask God what his will was.

Number two, having done this, I don’t leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If I do, I leave myself liable to great delusion. I can speak to that one for sure.

He said, I didn’t just trust what my feelings told me, but I delved deeper to see what God’s will was. Number three, I seek the will of the Spirit of God through or in connection with the Word of God, like we talked about last week. The Spirit of God, which we’ll talk about next week, and the Word of God, which we talked about last week.

The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

Amen is right. Number four, next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.

I’ve talked to you about the person telling me that their washing machine exploded. It must be a sign from God. That’s ludicrous to me.

Sometimes God can speak through our circumstances. I don’t want to limit God in such a way and say that he can’t do what he chooses to do. After all, he spoke to Moses through a burning bush.

But at the same time, we can’t just rely on experiences and signs and stumble around in the dark trying to sense our way to God’s will apart from his word. You see, Mueller took his circumstances in light of God’s word and his spirit. Five, I ask God in prayer, as we’ll talk about today, to reveal His will to me aright, correctly.

And six, thus through prayer, the study of the word, and reflection, I come to deliberate judgment, according to the best of my ability and knowledge. If my mind is thus at peace and continues so, after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. I have found this method always effective in trivial or important issues.

Incredible man. And results are not necessarily a guarantee that somebody is in God’s will. The folks, when George Mueller set out to do things for God or let God do things through him, the people around him because of his age, because of his poverty, because of any of these things said that he couldn’t do or that couldn’t be accomplished, and George Mueller studied God’s word and prayed about it and did these things until he was convinced that it was God’s will and then set out and let God take care of the rest. And these kinds of amazing things happened.

Pretty good indication that somebody was following God’s will. And part of that was prayer. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.

James chapter 1. We’re just going to look at verses 5 through 8 this morning. James chapter 1, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

What we have here is God telling us, If we lack wisdom, ask for it. And he doesn’t say, go and ask for it of other people. He doesn’t say, go and take a poll.

And as I said last week, he doesn’t say, go and watch Oprah and she’ll tell you what it is. No, God says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. And I made a statement last week that I want to make sure is not misunderstood.

I can’t remember exactly what my words were. But I said something to the effect of, if you want to know what God’s will is, don’t come ask me. Go to your Bible.

I want to make it very clear. I am not opposed to counseling anybody. If you’ve got questions, if you’ve got something you’re stumped on, I may not have the answer, but I’ll do my best to help you.

I don’t mind praying with you, trying to offer whatever little bit of wisdom I might or might not have. I don’t mind counseling you. And if it came across that way, I’m sorry.

Somebody said something to me about it later. What I’m telling you is, you do not have to rely on me to know what God’s will is. I’m here to help you if you need help.

that you don’t have to go to the preacher, you don’t have to go to deacons, you don’t have to go to a priest, you don’t have to go to. . .

God’s Word is right here for you. And I’m willing to help you and guide you through that as best I can, that you have access to God through Christ just as much as I do. That was my point last week.

But he says don’t. . .

He doesn’t tell us here, go and ask the preacher. He doesn’t tell us, go and ask other people, get all your girlfriends together and see what they say. He says, let him ask of God.

Folks, that’s an incredible statement right there in and of itself, that God tells us, if we lack wisdom, ask me. The God of the universe, the one who created all of this and set it in motion and knows how all of it works, tells us, if you need wisdom, ask me for it. He invites us to ask him.

Folks, when it talks about wisdom here, it’s talking about spiritual wisdom. If you read back into the previous verses before that, starting in verse 1, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ of the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

And that word perfect there a lot of times means complete. So what he’s addressed already in these previous verses is talking about things like joy, talking about dealing with and falling into temptation, talking about our faith being tried, talking about patience being created, talking about being complete. Folks, these are not things that the world can help us with.

Maybe with the exception of building patience. The world we live in can try our patience. I about had a meltdown yesterday trying to drive through Fayetteville and get around.

Baseball games and I don’t know what else. There was so much traffic. Anyway, tried my patience.

But for the most part, these are not things that the world helps with. These are not things of worldly wisdom. These are things that spiritual matters that God says, if you lack wisdom, ask me.

And we are able, through prayer, to go to the very throne of God and make our petitions known to him, including, God, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in this situation. God I don’t know how I’m supposed to live in this situation I don’t know how I’m supposed to react how I’m supposed to best represent you what choice I’m supposed to make here as we’ve studied through the word if we still can’t come up with a solution we have another place to turn he asks us to ask him and that’s what we need to see in here first is that God encourages us to ask him for wisdom in spiritual matters we see that in verse 5 if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God think about that When is the last time that you went in prayer to ask God for wisdom with how to deal with a situation? Now, I’m not asking you.

You don’t have to raise your hand and tell me. I’m asking you to ask yourself that question and answer it to yourself. When’s the last time that your prayer consisted of asking God for wisdom and how best to glorify Him and how best to serve Him in a given situation?

And if not the last time, how often do you do that? Folks, I can tell you truthfully I’ve done that once or twice in the last week, but that’s not near the amount I should be going and asking God for wisdom. Too often my prayers are, God, would you deal with this situation?

Would you help so-and-so out? Would you take care of this for me? Especially being here and hearing all the prayer requests that come through on a regular basis, it gets very easy to get caught up in taking my list to God, even if there are things that are not for me.

I’ve just taken my list before God and said, can you do this? And I should spend a lot more time asking God for wisdom in situations. God has made it clear that He’s willing to give us this wisdom, but He encourages us to ask Him for wisdom.

I don’t see in here that He gives us a guaranteed promise that we’re just going to be walking along and He’s going to hit us with the frying pan. I don’t see that in here. What He tells us is ask Him.

If any of you lack wisdom, let Him ask of God. I’ve heard people say that God can’t do things, God can’t do certain things until we ask for them. I don’t agree with that.

There’s not a lot that God can’t do. As a matter of fact, God can do anything consistent with His nature that He wills to do. I prefer to say there are some things that God won’t do, chooses not to do until we ask for them, because He wants our will and our heart to be in line with His.

God encourages us to ask Him for wisdom in spiritual matters. Folks, as far as spiritual matters go, knowing what God’s will is, is a pretty big deal. I would consider that a spiritual matter. And when we don’t know what God’s will is, it takes godly wisdom sometimes to figure it out.

And He has to impart that wisdom. And so when we don’t know what to do in a situation, he invites us to ask him. Second of all, he promises to give us wisdom and to give it liberally.

He doesn’t just say, let him ask of God, although that’s important enough, the permission that he gives us to bring our insignificant selves before him and ask for just a glimpse of his wisdom. That’s incredible enough, the permission that he gives us to even ask, but he also promises to grant that request. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. That’s pretty incredible too.

That God doesn’t just promise, or God doesn’t just give us permission to ask, but he actually promises that when we ask, he’s willing to give that wisdom and give it liberally. That word liberally means generously. That he pours it out on us more deeply and more fully than we could have ever anticipated.

That he gives it liberally. Just so we’re clear on what I’m not saying here too, we’re talking about wisdom. I’m not saying when we go before God in prayer, and we pray for wisdom, and then we also ask God, would you bless my finances?

This is not a promise here that God’s going to suddenly give you a million dollars in the bank. He’s talking about wisdom that he’s willing to give and give liberally. And when we go to God about spiritual matters, he doesn’t just give us the permission to ask, but he promises to answer that request. He promises to answer that request. When we don’t know what God’s will is, and we say, God, what is your will for my family?

God, we’re going through this difficult time and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do about my children. God, I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to my wife or my husband. God, what are we supposed to do about serving in church?

How are we supposed to handle our finances? God, I’m not asking you to do things according to my desires, but God, what is your will about this situation? And we go to God and we ask that wisdom for what his will is that we’re supposed to do or that he wants to do through us.

We have assurance that he will answer and grant that request. It’s not just an empty exercise. We can trust that God himself promises, he says that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. That upbraideth, that word upbraideth, is a word we don’t use a whole lot.

It basically means to, I don’t know the literal Greek word there, but we might use the words like tear down, punish, destroy. We might use words like that. In other words, God is not going to tear you up for asking wisdom.

God is not going to be mad at you for asking wisdom, for asking for his wisdom in how to deal with the situation, but instead he promises to give liberally the wisdom you need. Now, we need to be careful. We need to be careful about our prayer for wisdom.

Not because God will deceive us or mislead us. God can’t. As a minute ago, I said God can do anything consistent with his nature that he wills to do.

One of those things inconsistent with his nature is lying and deceiving. So God can’t deceive us and mislead us and lie to us and those sorts of things. But we need to be careful about praying for God’s will.

Not because what we’ll hear from God is wrong, but because sometimes we can delude ourselves into thinking, hey, I’ve heard from God, this must be the answer. When really it wasn’t God that spoke to us after all. I can give you some examples.

Years ago when I was still in school, before I met Christian, there was this girl that was a friend of mine, and we had talked about dating one another. And I knew that she was a Christian, but she went to a very, very different kind of church. And so as we talked about it, I said, well, I really need to pray about this.

I was a weird kid. I said, I need to pray about this. See if this is okay, because we’re talking about very different beliefs here.

Yeah, she still believed in salvation by grace through faith, but that was about it as far as us having anything in common. And I was already involved in teaching and things in Christian groups in school, so I said, I need to pray about this. Well, I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed, And after a little while, I decided I thought God was telling me it was all right.

In retrospect, I don’t believe it was God telling me it was all right. And we started dating, and she’d visit church with me, and I’d visit with her occasionally. Actually, I should say I visited her church once.

Went to church with her one night. We’re sitting there, and about halfway through the message, somebody started screaming three rows behind me. Now, understand, I was raised hardcore independent Baptist. The only time anybody screams in church and it’s okay is at business meeting.

But they started screaming three rows behind me, and my head snapped back trying to figure out what was going on. And then somebody sitting down the row started screaming. Somebody started throwing hands in the air, praising God because these people were screaming.

And I’m trying desperately to melt into my chair. And then people started throwing themselves on the floor, and I thought, this is not, this is not what I’m used to. And I’m not trying to run down their church.

I’m just telling you, this is not what I’m used to, and it’s not what I believe the Bible teaches. But we got into a discussion about it afterwards, got into a few discussions about it the next few days, not only about the screaming and the rolling around on the floor, but about some other things. Got into some arguments about what we believed because we determined that what we believed was very different.

And we decided that we probably ought not to date one another anymore. And after that, we really weren’t even friends anymore. It may sound kind of silly, but there were hard feelings over this difference of belief that destroyed our friendship.

And see, I had convinced myself, because I prayed to know what God’s will was, I had convinced myself that God said this was okay, that it didn’t matter. It was shortly thereafter that I discovered verses like Amos 3. 3 that says, How can two walk together except they be agreed?

Verses like that that talk about divisions among us that shouldn’t be so. and realized if I had checked what I thought I was hearing from God, God didn’t mislead me, but what I thought I heard I was misled on. That if I had checked what I thought I was hearing from God against God’s word, I would have realized my error.

Sometimes we can be deluded into thinking we’re hearing God’s will when it’s really not God talking to us. It’s either another voice or it’s us choosing to believe what we want to hear. Another man, many, many years ago, walked along, and after reading this very passage, I’ve read his biography, several of them, and he refers to this very passage, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given unto him.

On the basis of this passage and not knowing which church he ought to join, he began to pray for God’s will and God’s wisdom in which church he ought to join. And the story goes that about that time an angel appeared to him. An angel told him that all the churches in his area were wrong.

He said, okay, what am I supposed to do? And the angel told him, well, God has sent me to have you restore his church. And he’s given me his word to give to you and take his word and share it with everybody else.

And this man said, this must be God’s will for me because I prayed for it. And it happened. And that man talked about his testimony with the angel.

And that man took God’s word all over the world. And God’s word is still going all over the world, or so they claim. And, folks, that man’s name was Joseph Smith.

And the church he restored, w