How Can I Know What to Do?

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You know, I absolutely hate to be in a situation where I don’t know what to do. I hate that. Some of you may be the same way.

Some of you may say, well, I never know what to do. But I hate being in a situation where I don’t know what to do. When we were at the hospital this week, they’ve sort of changed up the arrangements in the cafeteria from the last time we were there.

And they’ve got all these different places where you can eat. and I made the mistake of going down at lunchtime. I also don’t like crowds and long lines, so I’ll eat at random times.

But I made the mistake of going down actually at lunchtime and went to one of these kiosks. They were making burgers and chicken sandwiches and things like that. And everybody else, they seemed to be able to figure out where lines were.

To me, it just looked like chaos. It was just a big mass of people. And every time I’d get in what I thought was a line, it turned out not to be a line or it turned out to be just people standing there trying to decide what they want.

I was so frustrated. I was about to do what I normally do in a situation like that and just say, well, I don’t need lunch and walk off. But I knew my wife would get on to me for that.

But I just stood there. I finally got my sandwich. But I hated standing there not knowing what to do, not knowing where to go, what to do, where I’m supposed to be.

I hate that. My kids will ask all the time when they’re getting ready in the morning, Mama, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do now?

I told you all last week, I married the single most competent and capable person in the entire world.

I don’t know if we still have them, but at one point what she had done was she had made up charts for each of the children for in the morning with what they were supposed to do, in what order they were supposed to do it, and had put a little blurb like, you know, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, had put a picture above it for each of these things for them to understand what they were supposed to do she had laminated them and she and she had taped them to the mirror in the kids bathroom and said just work your way through the list and if there’s anything different I’ll let you know that way they would know what to do they wouldn’t have to be standing because their issue they they did what their daddy does if they didn’t know what to do they just stood there and did nothing and then we’re wondering 30 minutes later why nobody’s ready to go to school or go to church or whatever it was.

They didn’t know what to do and so they did nothing. And I think sometimes that’s the way it is with ministry. We’ve been talking about ministry the last few weeks and the calling of every believer to be involved in ministry, which if you’ll recall back a few weeks ago, I defined for you as any effort you make to point somebody toward Jesus Christ. It doesn’t have to be being up here preaching a sermon.

It doesn’t have to be leading the music. It doesn’t necessarily have to be teaching a Sunday school class. All of those things are ministry, but there are things you can do on a daily basis just as part of your everyday life that if you’re doing it for the purpose of pointing somebody toward Jesus Christ, that is your ministry.

So we’ve been talking about the need for every person to be involved in ministry, and I think sometimes in ministry we get to this place where I don’t know what to do. And so I’m just going to do nothing. Because we hate the feeling of I don’t know what to do and trying to figure out what to do.

And we feel like when it comes to serving the Lord, we’re sort of standing there in the cafeteria, the hospital going, is the line over here? Am I supposed to be? Wait, is that the chicken?

Where am I supposed to be? We hate that. And so we just freeze and we do nothing.

It’s a natural question to ask, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? You know, I did this early on.

I knew that God was calling me into ministry. I knew that God was calling me into ministry as a pastor, but not too many churches will let you pastor them as a 15-year-old. So I had to, and there’s a reason for that.

Told somebody out in the Welcome Center earlier, I wish I knew as much as I did 15 or 20 years ago, right? There’s a reason for that. But you’ve got to start somewhere, and just because you’re not where you know you’re going doesn’t mean you get to stand there and do nothing until God opens that door.

So I knew I needed to start somewhere in ministry. They threw me into children’s church, which is definitely not my spiritual gift. Okay?

Told you all before. Actually, I may have misled you before. I’ve said I don’t like other people’s children.

That’s not entirely true. I like your children as long as I don’t have to take care of them and be in charge of them. My children I’m okay with because I can tell them to knock it off and nobody’s going to be mad at me for that.

I like your children as long as you’re in charge of them. But being in charge of a room of 30 of other people’s children, that was not my spiritual gift. But just because I’m saying, wait a minute, God’s called me to pastor and you want me to teach children’s church, I’m not doing that.

I didn’t get to do that. God opened this door, and so that’s where I was going to go. But sometimes we don’t like the door that God’s opening.

We don’t like the direction that’s there. We don’t like the open door right in front of us. And so we stand there and we try to discern God’s will like it’s some mysterious thing.

And I’ve counseled enough people to know just about all sorts of life decisions that we act like it’s, I don’t know, in some ways harder than it really is. Like we are convinced we don’t know God’s will or can’t know God’s will until there’s some, you know, fiery lettering in the sky 50 feet high. Or God sends down a sign.

Do you remember those Golden Corral commercials years ago where the little chef with the wings would hit people in the back of the head with the pan? They’d be trying to figure out where am I going to lunch today, and he’d hit them in the head and they’d say, I think I’m going to Golden Corral. We almost act like we can’t know God’s will until we get that clear of a sign. Where am I supposed to go to school?

Who am I supposed to marry? What job am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do in ministry?

We’re waiting. We’re waiting for the Damascus Road experience. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit’s speaking to us in a still small voice and telling us what to do.

It’s natural to ask what we’re supposed to do about ministry. But folks, God has a will for each of us. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you have His Holy Spirit, and so He’s given you gifts and a calling.

We’ve talked about that. He’s given you a ministry to do. And guess what?

It’s not a secret. See, God is not keeping secrets from you about His will for you because His will is what He wants you to do. And He’s not.

. . God is not our wives saying, I don’t know, if you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to tell you.

My wife doesn’t do that, by the way. But he’s not saying, I’m just not going to tell you. No, no, God has a will for us because he wants us to do it.

And that applies to your ministry and your calling in his kingdom as well. I want you to turn with me this morning to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16.

I want to look at an example from somebody that started out in one direction in ministry and had to get directions from God, how he was supposed to know what to do. And maybe it’ll help you as you try to discern, how do I know what I’m supposed to do? How can I know what to do?

Okay, preacher, you’ve been telling me that God has a ministry for me to do. He’s got a calling for me. He expects every believer to be in ministry.

He’s given me the gifts. How do I know what I’m supposed to do? Let’s look at something from the life of the apostle Paul.

We’re going to be in Acts chapter 16 this morning. We’re And once you turn there, if you’re able to stand for a couple minutes, if you’ll stand with me as we read from God’s Word. If you don’t have your Bible, if you have your phone, there’s a link to it in our bulletin.

And otherwise, it’ll be on the screen here for you. Acts chapter 16, starting in verse 4, it says, And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily.

Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mycenae, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mycenae, they came down to Troas.

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. Now after he had seen the vision immediately, we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

And you may be seated. So when this starts out, Paul and Silas and Timothy were out doing ministry. They were out preaching the word.

They were out teaching the churches, encouraging people. They were determined to do it in the right way. But at this point, the last instructions they had received from God were just go and preach the gospel.

So they were going and preaching the gospel, and wherever they happened to go, that’s where they were preaching. And so they were just sort of headed out doing the last thing that they knew to do. And along the way, Luke joined them, because we see at the very end of that passage, he says, we.

That tells us that Luke joined them somewhere along the way. But as they’re traveling, as they’re preaching, they’re just going from town to town, from place to place, and they’re preaching God’s word. They’re encouraging the churches.

They’re starting new churches where they find converts. And what happens is they’re prepared to go to one particular area. When they leave this town, they’re going to go over to this town.

This is their plan. And the Holy Spirit says, no, don’t go preach there. Now, that’s a rare thing for the Holy Spirit to tell you, no, don’t go share the gospel with them.

But it’s not because he didn’t want them to have the gospel shared to them. As a matter of fact, later on, other missionaries would go there. It’s because God had something else prepared for them specifically.

So he said, don’t go there. And so they said, well, we’ll avoid that area. We’ll go on to the next area.

And he said, no, not there either. He said, I don’t want you preaching in Asia. I want you to go over to Macedonia.

Go over into Europe. Now, by the way, this is not an ethnic thing. This is not God saying, no, I don’t want the Asians to be saved.

I want the Europeans. This was the Roman world. These were all Greco-Romans.

When it’s talking about Asia, it’s not talking about the whole continent of Asia that we think of stretching clear over to China. This is talking about a very small part of Western Turkey that was the Roman province of Asia. He said, I don’t want you preaching in that province.

I want you to go over to Greece. These were all the Roman people and all the mixture of people that lived in the Roman Empire. He said, I just don’t want you preaching in this territory because I’ve prepared people over there in Macedonia who are ready to hear from you.

There are people over in Macedonia whose hearts are prepared for the message and who are going to respond to it. That’s where I want to use you. But what we need to understand about this, we hope, we hope sometimes that God would speak to us so clearly, right?

Don’t you wish God would send you a vision of some guy who just told you where to go and what to do every day? Understand that’s not an everyday occurrence for the apostle Paul either. I’ve heard people question the validity of the Bible.

They say, well, the Bible is filled with miracles. Miracles just happened all the time. Visions and healings and these things happened all the time.

And where are they today? yeah they didn’t happen every day in biblical times either they just don’t happen to write always about the normal tuesday where nothing happened how how interesting would that be to read right there were plenty of times where there wasn’t a vision with a guy sent by the holy spirit telling them to come to this particular town there were plenty of other days when paul was just like you and me studying the scriptures and and read and praying to god and trying to discern his will and doing the best he could. And that’s where Paul started out.

He started out in just obedience to the last thing he knew to do. The standing instructions that he had were to teach and to strengthen the churches, and so that’s what he was doing. So verses 4 and 5 tell us, as they went through the cities, they delivered them to the decrees to keep, determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in number daily.

That means the churches grew stronger, and more people were coming to Christ, as a result of them going and teaching. When he talks about these decrees that were set by the elders and the apostles in Jerusalem, that refers to the previous chapter, Acts chapter 15, where they had a big meeting to try to determine whether or not somebody had to follow the Jewish law in order to be a Christian. And the way they settled that was, no, you don’t.

Gentiles did not have to be circumcised and keep the Passover and all these other laws in addition to Jesus Christ. in order to be Christians. It was in Acts chapter 15 that the gospel faced this test, whether it’s Jesus plus something else or Jesus alone that gets us to the Father. And they said, no, we’re not going to add these other burdens to you.

We’re not going to make you follow the law. We’re not going to make you go through all these rituals. And so when it says they went around sharing the decrees, if you read back to Acts chapter 15, don’t read that and think it means that they went around just telling everybody the rules.

They’re sharing the gospel. They’re sharing what the church had concluded from the Scriptures, not on its own authority, but from the Scriptures, had concluded was true that all they needed was Jesus Christ. So they were preaching the gospel. And notice here that as they were going around preaching the gospel, this story does not start with them looking for a sign.

It doesn’t start with them checking the stars. It doesn’t start with them reading the horoscopes. It doesn’t start with them trying to read tea leaves or palms or putting out the fleece.

Not that there was anything wrong with Gideon putting out the fleece, but it doesn’t start with them looking for a sign, like God sending the big neon sign from heaven of what they were supposed to do. And it certainly doesn’t start with them refusing to do anything until they had a clear direction of the next 15 steps. I’m bad about that sometimes.

My wife will ask me to do something. Well, aren’t you going to need me to do. .

. I won’t do what she asked me until she tells me the full 15 steps down the road. I do the same thing with God sometimes if I’m not careful.

He tells me to do one thing. I see one thing in Scripture that I’m supposed to do. But Lord, what about down here?

If I could handle the next 15 steps, He’d give me the next 15 steps. Most of the time I do well to handle the next one step. And it doesn’t give me permission to say, but Lord, I’m supposed to be over here eventually.

they didn’t just sit at home until they knew they were supposed to go to Macedonia. The last thing they knew was just go and share the gospel. Just go and preach the word.

Just go and encourage and strengthen the churches. And so that’s what they were doing. And this to me is a perfect example of something I heard my pastor say numerous times growing up.

He would ask the question, what was the last thing God told you to do? And have you done it? Because sometimes we will ask God for the next 15 steps.

Meanwhile, God’s saying, you haven’t done the one I’ve given you. I used to laugh and get annoyed at the supermarket tabloids. Do they still have those?

I haven’t paid attention in a long time. My first job was as a cashier at Homeland, so they’d be right there in front of my face all day every day. But I’d laugh and get annoyed sometimes at these tabloid headlines that would say, new Bible prophecies and predictions, new Bible revelations for 2004, whatever it was.

I thought why in the world would these gullible and I’m sorry if some of you bought those magazines I don’t mean to make you feel bad but why in the world would these gullible people think God’s going to give new instructions when they’ve ignored all the last ones he gave right and yet I do the same thing it’s healthy to ask ourselves periodically to to take that accounting of our lives and say what is the last thing that I clearly understood God telling me to do what is the last thing God told me to do and have I done it? Don’t go asking God for more directions if you haven’t done the last thing that he’s told you to do.

As a matter of fact, when we struggle to figure out what we’re supposed to do in ministry and we don’t get an answer on what the next step is and we feel like God’s just not speaking to us, he’s not showing me anything in his word, I’m not getting a sense of anything out of my prayer life, God’s just not giving, God’s just being really closed-lipped about what comes next, it might be helpful to turn around and see if there’s a step back here left undone, left untaken. God may not give you that next step. God may not tell you about Macedonia until you’re already back here being obedient in Phrygia and Galatia.

Ask yourself, what’s the last thing God told me to do and have I done it? So they started out in obedience. They continued in alertness.

As they were going about their work, the Spirit of God spoke to them with a different assignment. Now, this is something else I struggle with too, that God will show me one thing I’m supposed to do. And I think this is what I’m supposed to do forever.

And then God will give a different instruction. Not now, God, I can’t hear you. I’m too busy doing this.

My kids will do this. Hey, I need you to take care of this over here. No, no, I’m doing this over here.

You asked me to do this. Yes, I asked you to do that an hour ago. Now I need you to do this.

Some of you have been there. You understand how that works. We do the same thing with God.

But God, you sent me to teach this Sunday school class. Well, now I’m asking you to do something else. And they could have very easily gotten into a place of disobedience if they had not been alert and paying attention to the next thing God called them to do.

If they had said, no, God, we can’t hear you because we’re too focused on the last thing. See, we can go to either extreme where we’re too focused on the next thing that we don’t do the last thing he told us to do, or where we’re so focused on the last thing that we’re not listening to him when he speaks now. but in verses 6 and 7 it says now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.

After they had come to Mycena they tried to go to Bithynia but the Spirit did not permit them. When you look at this what really happened is the Holy Spirit interrupted their plans. They were being obedient to the last thing God had called them to do but then God spoke and said no I want you to do something else.

They could have easily said, no, I didn’t hear that. Let’s go on to Bithynia anyway. Let’s go on to Asia anyway.

Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit’s saying, you’re not listening, are you? But they were alert. Yes, they were working.

Yes, they were being obedient. But they were also being alert to the next thing the Holy Spirit told them to do. He interrupted their plans.

And sometimes we’ve got to be flexible enough to let the Holy Spirit interrupt our plans. We don’t always like that, do we? We get it planned out and we know where we’re going and there’s some comfort in that.

I don’t like when my plans are interrupted my wife really doesn’t like when the plans are interrupted I don’t like it when it happens at home I don’t like it when it happens in ministry when you’re just plugging right along and you think you’ve got it figured out and then God says no we’re going to change we’re going to change course here but in order to stay obedient we’ve got to stay alert and stay flexible to what stay alert to him speaking to us and stay flexible enough to let him interrupt our plans because we don’t want to be in the center of our plans we don’t we we want to be in the center of his plans. And their desire to preach the gospel in Asia was not inherently bad. There was nothing sinful about the desire to go preach in the province of Asia.

It was just that God had prepared them for something else. God had something different for them to do. And like I said, this would have been easy for them to ignore, but they were attentive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit when he spoke in his time.

And so my advice to you from the scriptures today, if you’re trying to figure out what is it that God wants me to do in ministry. Go back and what is the last thing that God told you to do? And if you’re not already doing it, go do it.

But while you’re doing it, don’t get so hung up in that ministry and in that task that you completely shut out the voice of God when he tells you the next thing. And then we see them moving in faith. So when God called them to change course and do something different, they actually did it.

What a novel idea, right? That told us to do. Why would we expect him to speak to us and give us instructions if we’re not going to do anything with the instructions he gives us?

See, they had made up their minds a long time ago. They’d made up their minds a long time ago that wherever God sent them, that’s where they were going to go. Whatever God called them to do, they were going to do.

There was a phrase I heard come out of the convention, and some of you even sent me articles about this as well. I can’t remember who all sent it to me, but when they commissioned the new IMB missionaries this year, they talked about X number of people, however many it was, had just signed God a blank check in the amount of their lives and said, here it is, God, do what you want with it. Paul and Timothy and Silas and eventually Luke, they had come to a place in their lives where they had said, Lord, it’s yours.

And we have decided already ahead of time that whatever you call us to do, we’re going to be obedient. Doesn’t matter if it’s easy. Doesn’t matter if it’s pleasant.

Doesn’t matter if it makes sense. Before we even know what it is, we’re saying, yes, Lord. So to the point where when God says, no, don’t go to Asia, and then God said, come to Macedonia, it says in verse 10, I believe.

Let me check that. Verse 10, now after we had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia. This was a place the gospel had never been preached before.

As far as we know, this is a place none of been before. But it says when they got the call, immediately, without hesitation, without stopping to think about it, without telling God, wait, I need to pray about it. Have you ever done that?

There’s nothing wrong with praying about stuff, but God tells you, I want you to do this. You don’t have to stop and pray about it. He’s given you the answer.

All right. Immediately, right then, as soon as possible, they began making arrangements to go to Macedonia because they had already told God, yes, in whatever you call us to do. Now Asia, where he had told them not to go, it was much closer to home for them, but God was calling them to go to a new place.

And the idea that we would need to actually follow through when God tells us to do something is so simple that I almost feel silly for pointing it out and spending time talking about it. And yet I recognize that in my own life, sometimes it’s hard to do. And so I imagine if it’s hard for me, it’s probably hard for somebody else in here.

But don’t just ask God for direction and ministry. Don’t just ask God for what do you want me to do? What’s your will for me?

So that when he says, so when he tells you, you can sit back and say, cool story, Lord, and go on and do what you wanted to anyway. Resolve ahead of time that when he does speak, that you’re going to be obedient to the last thing he told you until the next thing he says, but you’ve already made up your mind ahead of time that whatever that next thing is, The answer is yes. They believed God.

They trusted God enough that they were willing to do just what he said. And that’s what it comes down to. They had a trust in God.

They said, we don’t know what awaits us in Macedonia. We don’t know what the problems are going to be. We don’t know what the challenges are going to be.

We don’t know if we are up to the task just in and of ourselves. But God, we know who you are. We know that you are the one equipping us.

We know that you are the one who is calling us. We know that you have a plan. And even though we don’t understand the circumstances, we trust you.

And I can just about promise you at some point in your Christian walk, God is going to call you into some kind of ministry, some kind of area of service that does not make sense to you. Trust him. One of the most exhilarating ministries of my entire life was when I was a teenager and spent Thursday nights down in Bricktown in Oklahoma City out in front of the spaghetti warehouse.

I think I’ve told you about this before. There were four men from my church, myself included. Two of us were very introverted, shy.

You may be surprised to hear that I’m shy. I have to work at not being shy. One of them was a biker, and one of them was a trucker and a retired Marine.

And those two would drag us into confrontational situations. I mean, these men had hearts bigger than they were. They were big teddy bears, but they were gruff.

And we’d go pass out tracts and we’d talk to people about Jesus. And I remember multiple occasions, somebody walking by and saying, I don’t need your tract. And this Marine getting in the guy’s face and saying, oh yeah, tough guys need Jesus too.

And I’m thinking, he’s going to get us killed. This is miles outside of my comfort zone. We are not even in the same hemisphere as my comfort zone.

But we saw God do some incredible things. It did not make sense to me that that man asked me to go with him and pestered me until I did. But it was amazing to see God at work.

You just got to trust him. God will almost certainly call you to do something that does not make sense to you. Trust him even when it doesn’t make sense to you because it makes perfect sense to him.

They believed God and they trusted him enough to say yes. We can only sign that blank check if we really trust him. That’s what Paul did and Timothy and Silas.

They were up for whatever God called them to do. And because God knew that they were prepared to say yes, God was prepared to give them the next instruction. So if you’re not hearing from God, if you’re in a place where you’re saying, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I know I’m supposed to be in ministry. I know I’m supposed to be serving, but I don’t know what He’s calling me to do. I have no idea.

How am I supposed to know what to do? Here’s my advice to you based on the Scriptures. Looking at the example that Paul and his associates set for us, Start by obeying what God has already told you.

It may not be a specific thing where God has already told you, go down to the corner of 11th Street and Lee Boulevard and such and such. It may not be that specific, but God has told you to do something. There are some instructions in the New Testament, again, that you don’t have to pray about.

They’re there for all Christians. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, that’s for you. And if God has shown it to you in His Word, start there.

Start being obedient in some small area of ministry. Go and start by obeying what God has already told you to do. If there’s something He’s told you to do and you haven’t done it, go do it.

Always remain alert to instructions from God. There’s a big difference between focusing on the work and focusing on the God who directs the work. Did you hear that?

There’s a big difference between focusing on the work and focusing on the God who directs the work. Because when we focus on the work, we can get so wrapped up in what we’re doing that we ignore God. And the point is not the work.

The point is to be serving God. When we focus on God, we’re wrapped up in Him. And we’re going to desire to be obedient and desire to hear from Him.

And then when He speaks, do what He says. This is the most obvious, but it’s the hardest sometimes. When He speaks, do what He says.

It’s key because our job is not just to know God’s will. It’s not just to know God’s will for us. It’s to do it.

It makes no sense to. . .

We put so much emphasis on finding God’s will. How can I know God’s will for my life? It makes no sense to put that much emphasis on it and then not do it when we know.

Make the decision ahead of time. Write the blank check. Decide that you trust God enough that you’re going to write the blank check and you’ve already decided ahead of time that whatever He calls you to do, you’re going to say yes.

I believe when God knows you’re at that point, He’ll give you the instructions you’re looking for. Again, it’s not a mystery because it’s something He wants you to do. It’s not a mystery because He has created each of us to glorify Jesus.

And as we go about serving Him and serving others, making our efforts to point others