If It's God's Will - Life of Paul Part 58

You know, it was the night of June the 4th, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy had just won the Democratic primary for the state of California, making him a shoo-in to win the Democratic presidential nomination and very possibly the White House.

And that evening, he came into the dining room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where 2,000 of his supporters were waiting for him. And after a rousing victory speech where he laid out his plans for changing America and changing the world, he ended his little speech with these words, he said, and now it's on to Chicago. Well, little did Mr. Kennedy know that lurking in the hallway just outside the ballroom was a young man named Sirhan Sirhan, a radical Palestinian, and he stepped into Kennedy's path as Kennedy left, and from a.22 caliber pistol shot eight times at him, within a few hours, Robert F. Kennedy was gone, along with all of his plans for the future. And then, of course, there's Michael Jordan, who after playing his last game for the Wizards, you know why they changed their name to the Wizards?

They used to be the Bullets, but they were really the Blanks. Anyway, that's kind of my personal little joke, but anyway, he was planning, you know, to go back and take over as the president of the organization, which is where he was before he resumed his playing career, but all it took was a 30-minute meeting with club owner Abe Pollin, and all of his plans for the future were completely altered. And finally, of course, let's think about the thousands of people who headed off for work on September the 11th, 2001, down to the Trade Center, and most of those people had plans for the day, the day before, September 10th. They had said to other people, hey, I'll call you tomorrow, or we'll meet for lunch tomorrow, or I'll meet you at the gym tomorrow right after work, and as we know tragically, most of those plans that they had for tomorrow never happened for so many of those people. The point is, friends, that planning for the future is something that we all have to do.

It's something we all do. It's important, but the Bible has, when it comes to planning for the future, the Bible calls us as followers of Jesus Christ to a unique mindset, to a special worldview when it comes to future planning, and we want to talk about that together here today using an incident out of the life of the Apostle Paul, and I hope this is going to change completely how you plan for the future and bring all of us into a biblical worldview about this whole thing. So let's look together.

A little bit of background. Remember here in Acts chapter 18, the Apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey. Let's show you a map. The Apostle Paul has crossed over from Troas here in northwestern Turkey today across the Aegean Sea to the town of Philippi. He's preached in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, then he's gone south to the city of Athens where he preached to the intellectual elite of the Roman Empire, and now he's in Corinth where the Bible says he stayed for 18 months preaching and teaching the Word of God. Now while he was here in Corinth, the Jewish community in town one day instigated a mob uprising against Paul, and they accused Paul of preaching a religion that was banned, that was illegal in the Roman Empire, and they dragged him down in front of the Roman governor of the province, a fellow named Gallio. He was the proconsul of the province, and as we saw last time, Gallio refused to even listen to their accusations.

He threw them and the whole lot of them out of court. Now, Gallio, friends, is a well-documented person in Roman historical records. He's a very well-known guy. As a matter of fact, Roman records tell us that Gallio was proconsul here in Corinth between the years of 51 and 53 AD, which is exactly the time that the chronology of the Bible has the Apostle Paul in town.

Once again, when we compare history and the Bible, the Bible always stands the test as it does here. In fact, when they were doing archaeological digs here in Corinth, they actually found a statue, a marble statue, that gives us a pretty good idea what this guy, Gallio, looked like. Here, look and see what you think. What do you think? I think he and I may be related somewhere. Anyway, this is our friend, Gallio. Now, that's as far as we've been, so let's dig in, shall we? Verse 18. So Paul, verse 18, stayed in Corinth sometime. In other words, he finished up his 18 months there, and then he left Corinth and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.

Let's go back to our map. Paul went down to the little port city of Cancria right here, seven miles east of Corinth, and he sailed across the Aegean Sea on his way to Syria, back to his home church in Antioch, which is actually a little off the map, but he went by way of Ephesus, as we're going to see in a minute. He took with him, the Bible says, Priscilla and Aquila, the two people he had partnered with in town, who were very intense and who were partners in his ministry, but, you know, just as important here is who Paul didn't take. Paul didn't take with him Silas and Timothy. If you remember, they were two of his original team members who had been with him in Corinth for the last 18 months ministering.

He didn't take them. He left them behind in Corinth to continue to work with the young church and the new believers in this town. One not with him was Dr. Luke, one of the original members of his team. Dr. Luke was still up north here in Philippi, where he had been for almost two years, over two years, working with the churches in northern Greece, strengthening the young believers there. You see, the point for us to realize today is that the apostle Paul didn't just blow into town, have a few tent meetings, lead some people to Christ, and then head off somewhere else.

Oh, no. Paul was a man who was committed to the long-term care, the long-term feeding, and the long-term maturity of the people that he led to Christ. So even when he left the town, notice what his model is, he always made sure somebody who was mature in Christ stayed behind to keep nurturing and maturing the believers in that town.

To put it another way, the apostle Paul was not interested in a ministry that was a mile long and an inch deep. His goal with every single person he met was not just to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ, but then to disciple and mature them into a fully devoted follower of Christ, a person who had the highest level of spiritual dedication, spiritual loyalty, outspokenness for Jesus, biblical obedience in their lives, he was out to turn them into totally new and totally better people. Now, if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, I'd like to say that there's a lot more in trusting Christ than just getting a fire escape from hell. There is that, but there's also this idea of God wanting to turn you into a new, different, and better human being. God wants to transform your worldview, your attitude, your lifestyle, your daily behavior patterns, and make you into a healthy person right here. This is what Paul was trying to do with all these people, turn them into healthy people from unhealthy people. And you know, many of us here who've never trusted Christ, I mean, we're unhealthy people. We know we're unhealthy. And the wonderful thing about coming to Jesus Christ is you don't just get heaven, you still get to be turned into a healthy person who lives life down here. Something to think about. We hope you'll make that decision. Well, let's go on.

What happened? Verse 18 continues, and before Paul sailed, he had his hair cut off down at the little port city of Cancria because of a vow that he had taken. The vow the Bible's talking about here was the Nazarite vow. We find it in the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 6.

Here's how it worked. A person would make a vow of dedication to God for a certain period of time, and during that time, they wouldn't cut their hair. At the end of that time, when the vow was over and done, they would ceremonially shave their head as an outward sign that the vow was over. And Paul apparently, somewhere during his two years in Greece, had made a vow to God about his ministry there. We don't know whether he made it when he was getting beat up in Philippi or whether he was sitting that night in the jail in Philippi or when he was getting run out of town in Thessalonica and Berea, or maybe it was when he arrived in Corinth and God appeared to him in a vision and said, everything's going to be okay. We don't know when he made the vow, but now that his ministry in Greece is over, he's leaving Greece, his vow is obviously over, and as a sign of that, he shaved his head. That's going to figure prominently later when he shows up in Jerusalem, because, you know, it takes time for hair to grow back, and he obviously shows up in Jerusalem with all of his hair gone.

That'll figure later, but that's why he shaved his head here in Cancria. Verse 19, and they arrived at Ephesus. They, of course, meaning Paul and Aquila and Priscilla. They arrived at Ephesus where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila and went by himself into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jewish people there.

And when they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. But as he left, he said, I will come back if it is God's will. And then he set sail from Ephesus.

Now, let's go back to the map. Ephesus, let's show you, was the capital city of the Roman province of Asia, everything you see in the green. Asia was the most populous, the most influential, and the most wealthy of all of the provinces of the Roman Empire, making Ephesus, therefore, the second most influential city in the Roman Empire of Paul's day, only behind Rome herself.

At the time of the Apostle Paul, Ephesus had a population of over 250,000 people. It was the home of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the great temple of Diana, the goddess Diana. Let's show you what it looks like today.

You say, well, that ain't no big whoop. Well, no, that isn't today, but let's show you what we think it looked like at the time of the Apostle Paul. And in Acts chapter 19, the cult of Diana in this town is going to figure prominently into some events of Paul's life. Ephesus, they've done archaeological digs there today.

Let's show you. This is just part of it going down the main street towards the library of Celsius. Then the street turns and goes down through the Roman Forum. And all that you see here, they have excavated less than 30% of the city of Ephesus, meaning that this city was an absolutely enormous metropolis at the time of the Apostle Paul, a very significant city. And the Bible tells us that the Jewish community here in Ephesus initially was very open to Paul's message about Jesus.

They ask him, would you please spend some more time with us? And for reasons the Bible never fully explains, Paul said no. We don't know why he was in such a hurry to get out of town. But he said, no, I can't. But he did.

It's interesting. He did leave town alone. Priscilla and Aquila stayed behind in Ephesus. That was Paul's standard operating procedure so that they were there to preach and they were there to teach and they were there to answer questions. He didn't leave them alone.

He left Priscilla and Aquila in town as Paul headed off for Syria. And that's where we'll pick up the story next time. But we want to stop now and ask a question.

It is our most important question. And I know it's early and it's rainy, but you guys I know are just, you're just jazzed to ask this question, aren't you? You don't look jazzed, but let's see how it works. Let's see how it goes. Ready? Here we go.

One, two, three. No one. You are jazzed. That's good. All right.

You say, Lon, so what? That's wonderful. That's sweet. I mean, Paul and then he cut his hair and you look stupid on that statue. What difference does any of this make in our lives? Well, let's talk about that connection. I want you to notice what Paul said to these Jewish people in Ephesus when he left.

Very important. He said, I will come back if it is God's will. Most of us here know the famous story about General Douglas MacArthur. He was driven off the Philippines, of course, in March of 1942 by the invading Japanese army. But trusting in the might of the American military machine and trusting in his own strategic abilities and tactical abilities as commander of the Pacific theater and trusting in the power of his own tenacity and his own grit, he made that famous pledge as he left the island, I shall return.

You all remember that. Well, it's interesting that here in Acts chapter 18, we have another man, the apostle Paul, who had just as much strategic ability as General MacArthur, just as much tactical skill as General MacArthur, just as much personal tenacity and grit as General MacArthur. But I want you to see that Paul's trust was in an entirely different source.

Watch. MacArthur said, I shall return. Paul said, I shall return if it is God's will. And when it came to making future plans, friends, this was the apostle Paul's constant refrain. Watch Romans chapter 1, verse 10. Paul says, I pray that by God's will, the way may be open for me to come to you. He said, Romans 15, 32, please pray that by God's will, I may be able to come to you. 1 Corinthians 4, 19. But I will come to you very soon, Paul said, if the Lord is willing. Every future plan the apostle Paul ever made was made the Lord willing. And in doing this, the apostle Paul was displaying for us and modeling for us a biblical world view. Because you see, the Bible says, Proverbs 27, verse 1, do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

The Bible says, James chapter 4. Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city and spend a year there and carry on business, why you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. Instead, James says, you ought to say, if the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that. By not doing so, you boast and brag, you're being arrogant.

All such arrogance, he says, is evil. You see, friends, the world view of the Bible is that you and I are not the final authority in terms of what happens in this world. The world view of the Bible says that you and I are not the captains of our own faith. The world view of the Bible says that you and I are not the ultimate controllers of the events of life. We can do all the planning we want, but the world view of the Bible says that ultimately it is God who decides how the everyday events of life are going to play out for us and for every other human being. And you know, this is why the Bible says, Proverbs 16, 9, the mind of man plans his way.

That's all right, but the Lord is the one who determines his steps. Years ago, when I was a brand new follower of Christ, 1971, I came here to the Washington area and I began working for the Good News Mission in Arlington, Virginia. They placed chaplains in local jails and prisons, and there was a lady there named Minnie Barnes. Minnie was a, she was the office manager and I was the janitor. So we got to talk a lot, the two of us. And I would always say, well, should we do this and should we do that?

What do you think about that? And Minnie would always answer me and say, yes, this and yes, that. And she would always add on the end, the Lord willing.

Yeah, we're going to the Lord willing, we're going to the Lord willing. And she began to drive me crazy with this phrase, the Lord willing, the Lord willing, the Lord willing. I was 22 years old and I said to her one day, why do you always say that? And she opened the Bible and showed me James chapter four. I'd never read James chapter four at that point. And she said, Lon, I say that because you see, it doesn't matter what you and I are willing to happen in life.

What matters is what God is willing to happen in life. And then she said something that I never forgot. She said, and I quote, when a person really sees life through the lens of biblical truth, they never make a single statement about the future without adding the caveat, the Lord willing.

You know, like I say, I never forgot what she said to me. And now I drive people crazy saying the Lord willing, we're going to do this, Lon, we're going to do that, the Lord willing. I drive my children crazy, the Lord willing, the Lord willing. They always say to me, Dad, why can't you say yes or no?

Why you always got to say the Lord willing? I said, well, I'll tell you why, kids. Have you ever heard of a lady named Minnie Barnes?

Let me tell you what she said to me. But she's right. This is the biblical worldview. This is the biblical approach to life. Yes, we plan, but we make every plan the Lord willing. Now, why is that so important? Why is having this mentality and this attitude the Lord willing about future planning so critical to our lives as followers of Christ? I got three reasons to give you and then I'm done.

Number one, because it keeps us humble. Look what James said here in James 4. He said it is nothing but sheer arrogance for us to make plans about the future and not make them the Lord willing.

Why is it a problem to be arrogant? Well, James says a little earlier in the chapter that God resists the arrogant. You don't want to be a person God's resisting, but God gives grace to the humble. And, friends, it's when we're willing to approach life with this attitude of the Lord willing, that's one of the ways that we can demonstrate true humility before God in our life because it's a way of saying to God, God, you're in charge, not me. It's a way of saying, God, you're the one who's ultimately going to make the decision, not me. It's a way of saying, Lord, in all of my planning, I am in surrender to you. You're my Lord. I'm the servant.

You make the call. This is humility and God honors that and God blesses that and God gives grace to people like that. And by approaching life with a Lord willing mentality, it is a way of humbling ourselves before God and bringing the blessing of God on our life. Number two, because having an attitude of the Lord willing about our future plans, it keeps us, second of all, flexible. It means we never get too locked in on any future plans because we realize that God is always free to redirect them. This keeps us fluid. This keeps us malleable in the hands of God. It means God can change directions for our life anytime He wants to in a moment's notice. And we're okay with that because our plans were not set in concrete anyway.

They were all made the Lord willing. You know, I just got back from a trip to Israel and it was kind of interesting. We flew to Rome on a Tuesday. We landed Tuesday morning in Rome and we were scheduled to tour Rome all day and then hop on an evening flight to go to Tel Aviv. Well, we were out for dinner just before we headed to the airport Tuesday night and we got a call from Tel Aviv saying, you know, there's a labor strike all of a sudden going on here. The entire airport is shut down. Now, there's only one international airport in Israel, so when it shuts down, you don't get in. And they said, no planes are leaving, no planes are coming in, it's shut down. So we're in Rome. The guy who leads my tours for me, he said, let's get a hotel room and we'll try to get there tomorrow.

So we got a hotel room for the group. And at 4.30 in the morning, I get a phone call from this guy. He said, I've already been up this morning.

I've already called Israel. The airport's shut again today. It's going to be shut again tomorrow.

They don't know when it's going to open. What are we going to do? There's no rooms in Rome. It's May Day in Rome, in Europe, and there's no rooms anywhere.

What are we going to do? Well, you know, on the way over, I'd gotten one of these little schedule books for the airlines. I love looking at those little books. I'm kind of weird like that. I don't know.

I just like looking at them. And so I noticed that the airline we were flying also went to Cairo. So I said to him, why don't we do this? Let's show you a map. I said, why don't we go from Rome, instead of flying straight over here to Tel Aviv, why don't we go to Cairo? Get them to send us to Cairo Wednesday morning. And what we'll do is we'll go to Cairo. We'll see the Sphinx. We'll see the pyramids. We'll go to the Egyptian Museum.

We'll see the treasures of King Tut. And then we'll bus across the Sinai right here, four hours, and we'll come into southern Israel through the land border here in Eilat in the Sinai. And we'll do Israel from the south going north instead of the other way around.

And he said, that's a great idea. Well, we were able to get the airline to do it, and so off we went to Cairo and did all of that. And a couple days later, we were coming through this border in southern Israel right down here in Eilat.

Now, friends, what you need to know is our original itinerary didn't call for us to get anywhere near the city of Eilat. So we're coming through, and because I'm the group leader, they always ask the group leader to come aside, and they give you a whole bunch of questions. I mean, I know the drill. I know the questions.

I could ask the questions and answer them. But we do it because these are the Israelis. You understand what I'm saying?

So, you know, and they all got Uzis, and so you don't argue with a guy with a Uzi. So anyway, this young lady was interviewing me. She couldn't have been more than 22 years old, and she says, so? She says, tell me about the group, and I did. And she said, and where are you going in Israel? I said, well, we're going to Jerusalem for four days. She said, what are you going to do there? I said, well, we're going to see a bunch of cool stuff. She said, well, what is there cool to see in Jerusalem?

I said, oh my gosh, there's the Wailing Wall and the Temple Mount and the Garden of Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb. And she said, alright, alright, alright. She said, do you know what's happening in Jerusalem? I said, yeah. She said, and you're not afraid to go to Jerusalem? I said, no.

I said, why? Are you afraid to go to Jerusalem? And she said, I'm terrified to go to Jerusalem. And so at that moment, I took off my sunglasses because my wife's always saying, look people in the eyes.

So I took off my sunglasses, took off my sunglasses, and I looked right in the eyes. And I said, let me tell you something. I know God in a real and personal way. And I said, you know what?

When you know God in a real and personal way, there's nothing to be afraid of. And I said, you know, I'm Jewish. You see my passport, Solomon, Shlomo.

That's me. And I said, I was born and raised Jewish. And then when I was in college, I was fearful just like you and lonely and scared. And I said, somebody told me about Jesus Christ, that he was the Messiah and challenged me to read the New Testament. And I read the New Testament and became convinced he was the Messiah. And I gave my life to him.

And 32 years later, he's transformed my life. I said, have you ever read the New Testament? She said, no. She said, but I have thought about it. And I said, well, God sent me here to tell you, you need to read the New Testament, because he wants you to come to Jesus as your Messiah. And she said, okay, I'll do it. I said, fair enough. I'll pray for you.

You read it. And I said, okay, now you can get back and ask me the rest of the questions about the tour that you need to ask me. Her name was Lauren.

I want you to pray for this young girl. Anyway, we went through the border and went on, had a wonderful time in Israel. But I got to thinking later. I don't know about you, friends, but I don't believe there's any such thing as a chance meeting. I don't believe there's any such thing as an accidental conversation about Jesus Christ. And I believe that God completely rerouted this tour because we weren't going to Elot. I believe God said, okay, I've got a guy leading the tour who plans tours, the Lord willing, because I do. And so God said, all right, so let's take him up on that and we'll kind of send him to Cairo. And then we'll kind of send a tour across the Sinai. And then we'll bring him up to Elot because there's a young lady there I need Lon to talk to.

And you know what? The reason it all worked is because we really do plan the Lord willing. We say, hey, if the Lord's willing for us to go to Israel, we're going. And if he's willing for us to go to Cairo, we'll go there. And if he's willing for us to go across the Sinai, we'll go there.

Hey, this trip's not my plan. This is God's plan. And friends, the same is true in your life. If you'll plan your life, the Lord willing, there are times God's going to want to shift you quickly. He's going to need you to respond quickly, to do the will of God for your life. And if everything is set in concrete because you planned it, me willing, not the Lord willing, you're not going to be available at those moments to make the switch and go where God needs you to go. Don't be like the Pentagon.

Be like a SEAL team. You understand what I'm saying? All right.

Now, number three. And finally, why is having a Lord willing attitude so important? Because number three, it keeps us depending on God and not on ourselves. Proverbs three says, depend on the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

See, God blesses and God honors and God personally guides every follower of Christ who's willing to depend on God and not themselves. And when we demand from ourselves the discipline of always saying the Lord willing, of always viewing life with the attitude of the Lord willing, what we are really demanding from ourselves for every plan, every dream and every hope we have, we are demanding from ourselves an attitude of dependence on God and not on ourselves. Because what we are saying is, God, all of this happening depends on you. All of my life depends on you. All of my plans depend on you.

I'm not relying on my own life, my own wisdom or my own strategy. I'm relying on you, God. It's the Lord willing. Friends, God honors that. And the Bible says God guides people who are willing to plan the future that way so that they don't guide themselves right onto a landmine, so that they don't plan themselves right into an alligator pit, so that they plan themselves in such a way that they don't self-destruct. God honors it when people plan the Lord willing. Because you may have planned yourself right straight into a landmine and God needs to say, no, no, no, that's a mistake, let's go this way.

And if you plan the Lord willing, you'll make the change. You know, Mother Teresa, you'll remember this a few years ago, Mother Teresa and Princess Di both passed away on the very same day. And you know, back then, you'll remember the world stopped for a little bit, hiccuped, and then just kept right on going.

I was in Jerusalem a few years ago on the very night when Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated. The next morning, we stopped for two minutes at noon and had a moment of silence all across the country and then the country just kept right on going, hiccuped and kept right on going. Friends, you know what? When you and I leave here, the world's not even going to hiccup.

It's just going to keep right on going. And what that means is, Paul said it, Romans 12, 3, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. Don't overestimate yourself, folks. You and I aren't running the universe. You and I are not the captains of our faith. You and I are not in charge of the events that unfold in our lives.

God is. And if that's true, and it is, then every plan we make, every dream we have has to be planned and dreamed, the Lord willing. And you plan and dream that way and God will honor your life and He'll make sure you don't step on any alligators. May God help you do that. Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us about living right down here on planet Earth, real life. You know, every one of us has to make plans every single day, plans to meet people for lunch, plans to go out for dinner, plans to go shopping, plans to carry out business, plans, plans, plans, plans. Plans are good, as long as they're made with a biblical worldview, the Lord willing. And God make us the kind of people who we end up driving people crazy, like Minnie Barnes, because the only thing we ever say is, yeah, we're going to do that, the Lord willing. May that be a discipline we practice in our life, a discipline that brings humility, flexibility, and dependence on God into our lives. And we ask all of these things in Jesus' name, and we pray that you'll change the way we live because of our being here today. And all God's people said, amen.