Knowing God's Will
- Stephen Phelan
- Dec 14, 2008
It is Advent, which is a season of waiting, of anticipating the coming Savior. As we talked about last week, part of what it means to wait on God is to obey God. To obey Him, then you need to know what God's will is for your life. This is what we're going to talk about-how do you know what God's will is for your life? That is a question that all of ask. There are 3 things we're going to look at that are critical in determining God's will:
1. Knowing God's Will requires you to follow your God-given desires
2. Knowing God's will requires you to take advantage of God-given opportunities
3. Knowing God's will requires you to use your God-given abilities
Let's consider each one. In our story, what you see is that Jonathan has a God-given desire to advance God's kingdom by making war with the Philistines. But, if you'll notice, he isn't entirely sure that his desire to go attack the Philistines is from the Lord. You see this in v6 where he says, "Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf." Part of him wonders, "Is this just me-or does God really want me to do this?"
Here is how he solves it. In v8 he says, "We will cross over toward the men and let them see us. If they say to us, "Wait there until we come to you," we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, "Come up to us,' we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands."
What you have here is really just another version of the story with Gideon's fleece, only Gideon faced a much clearer cut issue b/c he was commanded to do something. Here, in our text, Jonathan is nowhere close to as spiritually dense as Gideon was. But he, like Gideon, wants a sign to know whether this desire he has is God-given or just his own desire. And God grants it as he asks by having the Philistines say, "Hey, come on up."
Now this begs the question, "Is this how we test our desires? We ask God to confirm our desires through giving us a sign?" The answer is no. I know that many of you have done this. I have done this. Let me explain why this isn't how we know God's will by telling you a story to help you see practically why this isn't how we know God's will and then I'll give you the Biblical evidence to show you that this isn't what we should be doing to test our desires.
The story is about how Bradford and I began dating. I remember when my wife asked me to her sorority formal and it was just one of those nights where you go, "Hello. Whoa, what is going on here. I had seen my wife before, but at the same time it was as if I was seeing her for the first time. I know, I know, sometimes I am slow. But, honestly, this is often the way love goes. Out of a friendship love is born and that love grows and all of a sudden you realize your love for that person is something much more than friendship love. Well, that night this started to happen. We had a blast and stayed up into the wee hours of the night talking about everything. And it seemed like the stars were aligning, and I even thought I could here the birds chirping, but it was the middle of the night. And I remember leaving thinking, "Whoa, that young woman is something special."
But, there was this sticky issue of two of my best friends who were pursuing her. And I so I talked to God about it and said, "Father, I really don't want to go in and potentially risk these friendships with these 2 guys and get in the middle of all this tension unless this desire that I have in my heart for Bradford is from you. I need to know-if you want me to pursue her or is this just me?"
And I remembered the story of Gideon and I thought, that is it. I need a sign. So here is what I did. I said, "Father, if this desire is from you and you want me to pursue Bradford, then have her ask me to the next sorority formal coming up." Put my little fleece out. Same as Jonathan in our text, "God, if they say come on up, then I'll know."
So, the formal comes around and guess who my wife asks....not me. She asked this other guy who was pursuing her. And it was a dagger. There was my sign. And it was clear. See, if signs were the way that we determined whether a desire planted in our hearts was from the Lord or not and I allowed that to be the determining factor, then think about the blessing I would have missed out on.
Now, yes, I know that many of you can give me examples of when you asked for a sign and God used this positively. God can work through any flawed method, even our sin, to accomplish his purposes. Listen, just because it has worked on some occasions doesn't mean it is right. I have talked to people who drew Christmas trees on their SAT test and got above a 900 but that doesn't mean that is the right way to take the test or that you'll get the same score every time use this method.
See, here is what I missed out on and here is why we shouldn't use Jonathan's sign method in 2008. When Jesus Christ came into the world, there was a significant shift in how we relate to God. After His Resurrection, at Pentecost, he pours out His Spirit, what we call Holy Spirit. The granting of the Holy Spirit gave us all new access to the Father. We no longer go through earthly priests, but we have direct access through the spirit of our heavenly priest in Jesus Christ.
Thus, here are the reasons why you shouldn't seek to know whether a particular desire you have is God's will through signs. First, to seek signs is to go backwards in redemptive history. It would be like someone in 2008 saying, "I am going to go out and buy a BETA player." Someone would say, "Bro, see there was thing called VHS that replaced BETA, and then they came out with this thing called a DVD." When Jesus was resurrected, we got a whole new set of spiritual technology. His Spirit, Emanuel with us
The second problem with trying to knowing God's will by asking for signs is that this defeats the purpose of the cross. Dr. Waltke helped me a great deal with this and he has a great little book called, "Finding the Will of God,." And he points out how seeking signs is really a pagan notion. Listen to what he says, "Pagan kings in the Ancient Near East would never act in something as important as going into battle until he had the mind of the god as to whether he should or should not go to war. Many Christians follow this same path in seeking the divine mind in decisions. But that sort of pagan behavior is what Christ saved us out of. Christ, with His death on the cross, tore apart the veil in the Holy of Holies. Access to God is no longer limited...You now have access to God through Jesus Christ. You now have guidance from God through the Holy Spirit."
3rd problem: To seek a sign is to seek a shortcut.
It is much the same as a student asking a teacher for the answers to the test. If the teacher grants him the answers, then he has taught him nothing. He has short-circuited the learning process. But if the student works with the material and can take the tools and then apply them to various problems that arise, learning has happened. Such is it with God and the Holy Spirit. You must lean in, get to know Him, spend time with God, develop His spiritual tools, so that you can apply them and eventually know His will.
Ps. 37:4 puts this perfectly and this is a critical verse for knowing God's will through knowing your desires. It says this, ‘Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." When you delight in the Lord, this doesn't say he just gives you things you want. No, delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires. New desires, desires that are His. As you get these, you can trust them and move accordingly. But, desire is only one component, we still have 2 more things to consider...
2. Knowing God's will requires you to take advantage of God-given opportunities
You can have all the desire in the world, but if God isn't granting opportunities, then you know it isn't his will. In our story, you see that God grants Jonathan a God-given opportunity. Here he has called Saul, and therefore Jonathan, to go and defeat the Philistines. Jonathan sees the enemy and here is his God-given opportunity.
One of my favorite texts in the Bible on this comes from Proverbs 16:9, which says this, "A man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." And one of the central ways that the Lord determines your steps is by opening or closing doors. See Paul says in Col. 4:3, "pray for us...that God may open a door for our message..." That my friends is what God does-he opens and closes doors of opportunity. And, I have found, he makes his will most clearly known through close doors. Didn't get the job-closed door; got rejected by a girl for a date-closed door. Acts 16:6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. See here you have an example of God closing the door of opportunity even though preaching the gospel was a good thing, God closed this door.
Or I'll give you an example from my life. Throughout college you're trying to discern what God's will is for you after college. What am I going to do when I grow up? As I was graduating, I was considering two options: law school or the NFL. At that point, seminary wasn't even on the table b/c God hadn't called me yet. The NFL was admittedly a longshot. I went through the combines and you know what happened-God closed the door.
But he opened the door for law school and one of the significant ways was through providing scholarships. The reason that mattered so significantly to me was because at the time I wasn't sure if I would practice law when I got out, though obviously this was the most likely outcome. But, particularly, I could see myself doing some sort of public sector work or human rights law with an organization called International Justice Mission, and these jobs tend to be lower paying and so it is more difficult to come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, which many of my friends have, because then you were forced into going to a big firm and banking the cash to pay off that debt and I just didn't feel like that was who God created me to be. Thus, one of the ways God opened the door of opportunity for me to go to law school was by providing a full scholarship, which I thought would free me up to do some of the lower paying jobs. I didn't realize at the time that God had an even lower salary in mind than I did as a pastor, but that is beside the point.
TRANS: So, thus far, here is what we have in knowing God's will: we take our God-given desires and ask, "What God-given opportunities are you granting through open and closed doors?"
3. Knowing God's will requires you to use your God-given abilities
This is the 3rd major piece-what God-given abilities do you have. If you look at our text, Jonathan clearly has some gifts as a warrior. If you remember from our previous text, he had already gone to Gibeah and slaughtered the Philistine outpost that was there. So it isn't like he is acting in an area that is totally out of his gift-mix when he is considering this God-given opportunity to attack the Philistines.
So, our gifts enter into the equation of knowing God's will. Just before entering law school, I was involved in this praise and worship group that met in an apartment in Auburn. The worship really was amazing. In retrospect, maybe I thought it was better than it actually was because this was where the magic began for me and my wife. But that is beside the point.
In any event, as I went back to law school I felt compelled to start a praise and worship group at UVA. I had a God-given desire and there was a God-given opportunity b/c there really wasn't anything like this at UVA. Only one problem-I couldn't play an instrument and I was thinking that it was God's will for me to lead this thing by playing the guitar. But I was sure this was God's will so I approached a buddy of mine at UVA who played the guitar and said, "Brian, listen, what do you think about leading this group with me and laid out the vision." He agreed and I said, "I have this little problem in that I can't play the guitar yet, but I'm going to learn and in a few months we'll be golden. But, I have a bongo drum that I brought back from Africa-I'll start on that."
So we start the group and 20 people or so come. It starts growing and a few different instruments are added and they call a meeting of the band. So the band says, "You know, Stephen, we have been thinking about the sound of our band and we were thinking it might be better if you were on the tambourine." And I said, "Tambourine.....hmmm....I could feel that." So there I was...bam...bam....bam...
The group gets up to 150 or so, adding instruments, and another meeting of the band is called. "You know, Stephen, we have been thinking about our sound and we were thinking it might be best to put you on the egg shaker." Not one to lose heart easily, I pondered this fine offer to wield the Egg shaker and said, "OK, I could feel that." So there I go.
The group continues gets up to around 300 people and we have another meeting of the band. Same line comes up again, "Stephen, you know, we have been thinking about our sound, and we were thinking that you might be best on the overhead projector." Seriously, the overhead projector. Demoted to something that made no noise. So, what is the point-I had a God-given desire to lead this praise and worship group musically, I had a God-given opportunity, but I had absolutely no God-given ability.
Now, admittedly, the ability question is not determinative in knowing God's will because God has always chosen to use people who lacked the necessary abilities so that he gets the glory. David (a young boy with a slingshot) fighting a giant, Moses (a guy who struggled with public speaking to deliver speeches to Pharoah and lead a nation). And I could keep listing example after example to show you that God's preferred method of working is through weakness.
But just because God shows up and super-charges our abilities with His power sometimes doesn't mean that His will for us is to seek out areas that we have no ability in. This is why apart of knowing God's will involves a gift or ability assessment. Acts 11:29, "The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea." Knowing God's will-that is-how they could help their brothers, meant knowing their ability and acting accordingly. Or in Acts 6: 2-3, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables." The apostles had apostolic gifts of teaching and preaching and pioneering and it would have been contrary to God's will for them to not use these gifts, even though mercy ministry is a wonderful thing that is at the center of God's heart. This is why the office of deacon was created, to free the apostles to function in their unique gift areas of prayer and ministry of the word and to allow people who had the gift of mercy to spend their time doing what they were gifted to do.
So, in summary, what I am telling you is that there is no short-cut to knowing God's will. It begins with delighting in Jesus, allowing Him to shape your desires and open opportunities in areas where you have some ability. Let me ask you-how are you doing?
If I you're honest, I think you have to admit that there are many times you either don't know God's will or you do and just flat out choose to go a different route. And this is where Christmas comes into play. At Christmas we sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Emmanuel, God with us, He showed up and showed us how to know & follow God's will. This is why he said in John 6:38, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me." That was the desire of His heart. But lots of us have this desire, we just lack the ability to follow through. Not Jesus. Why? B/c what else do we sing--vailed in flesh, the Godhead see-he was God, He wasn't jacked up like you and me. And so, when he was presented with the God-given opportunity to redeem all of us who haven't followed God's will for our lives, he said, "Not my will, but Thy Will be done."
But as good as that news is, it won't change you unless Jesus becomes more than just a model to live up to of how to follow God's will. He isn't just a model, He is Messiah, who lived and died for you. And when He becomes your Messiah, not just your model, then He is Emmanuel, God with you. God in you. God saving you, guiding you, loving you, making his will known to you. Emanuel. It all begins with Jesus-to know God's will is to know Jesus and grow in Jesus and allow Emanuel to make true in your life what was true in His.
