R1675 Knowing and Doing God’s Will

Knowing and Doing God's Will, two powerful words, and we'll gain insight from Dr. Don Wilton today from the book of Nehemiah. This is The Encouraging Word, featuring the Bible-based teaching of Dr. Don Wilton, well-known author, seminary professor, pastor, and today as we go to Nehemiah chapter 2, these two powerful words, knowing and doing.

Knowing God's will is first and foremost, but then doing it, are we putting that into action? We'll gain insight from Dr. Wilton today on that, and while we do so, we want you to know that we're available for you, connecting right now on our website at www.tewonline.org. Many folks are asking about this wonderful prayer resource, especially for families, parents and grandparents in particular. The details are on our website, www.tewonline.org. We'll give you more details later, but you can check it out right now, www.tewonline.org.

We'd love to connect with you. And now today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Open your Bibles to Nehemiah, and we're going to be in chapter 2. I'm going to read to you just, excuse me, the first six verses of Nehemiah chapter 2.

The Bible says in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and I gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.

Then I was very much afraid. So I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? And so the king said to me, What are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And then I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favour in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it. And the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, How long will you be gone?

And when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. May the Lord give us an understanding, may the Spirit of God open our hearts and apply this word to every situation, in every life, in every need, at every turn. Because we believe in Jesus. We trust in God.

Lord Jesus, I want to know, you are my commander in chief. How can I know your will? I think we can extrapolate knowing God's will, how to know God's will, and I'm going to give you five pointers today. Number one, in order to know God's will, he looked up, he looked up. Verse three, verse four, the beginning part of verse five and verse six, the latter part, he looked up. That's where he began. If you look at verse three, I'm not going to read all these again.

What did he begin with? King, you are king, live forever. This man in his predicament, seeking, searching, knowing this burden in his heart, he looked up. Friends, watch me.

We know this to be true. When you hurt, when you're faced with decisions, when something gnaws at you, where do you look? Pain causes you and me to look down. Predicaments, crossroads, it causes you to look down. You look down, you look in, because it's a quandary, it's not necessarily a painful thing. But any kind of decision causes you to look down, not up. I'm pastor of a church, there have been many times, and I say this very lovingly, and I may be speaking to you today, that I've known precious people who begin to go through difficult times.

And I'm speaking symbolically here. They go from the front row to the middle row to the back row to the upper row to the outside row. They move out, they move away. The greatest discipline you and I can ever have is to keep our focus on Jesus. Number one, he looked up. Number two, he looked at. He looked at chapter one, verse three. If we go back to chapter one, verse three, where we've already been, powerful verse there. They said to me, you want to know God's will, you first look up into the face of the king. Second thing you need to do is to look at. Now to look at who? You've got to look at trusted, tested, proven, godly people. May I, would you allow me if I just had a word with our young people?

Can I just do that? If you old, hot, and bothered right now, don't listen. Young people, I want to speak to you as a grandfather and as a dad.

You want to know God's will? Just look at your mom and dad, at your grandparents. Look at their godliness. The wisdom you get from people that you know walk with the Lord is unparalleled. I could not survive as the pastor of this church with all these people and all the opinions in this church for 29 years. There is no way, if it weren't for the hundreds of people that I look at every day. You're all over, I see you everywhere.

You're young, you're older, you are unbelievably precious. There is no king in this church because he alone is king. He looked at, right now you're thinking of that best friend, that mother that prayed for you, that grandmother, that wife, that husband, that dad, that god, and it's not one. How do you know God's will?

God speaks to people. Number three, he looked out. He looked out.

How do you know God's will? Just look out. What do you mean he looked out?

Well, chapter 1 verse 3 and then again in chapter 2 verse 3 says the same thing. I'm looking out, I've received this report, godly people are speaking to me. And then he looked out and he sought for himself.

Open your eyes. One question you should never ask is what's in it for me? The church is not a smorgasbord, it's not a buffet where there's got to be a taste of something for everybody's needs to satisfy them. The church is the tabernacle of the living God, designed with one purpose, and that is to maximize everything about the church in order to reach everyone for Jesus. We are the church where everyone can invite anyone to come to First Baptist to encounter the living one. That should be the mantra of every Christian church. Everyone, that means nobody's left out.

Anyone, have you ever tried to define anyone? Tall, short of every race, of every creed, of every disposition, of every culture, of every... Because here's the bottom line, when Jesus went to the cross, he leveled the playing field. He loves all people, everyone.

Now you and I have a tendency to see each other in our school districts, and this school is better than that school. Jesus doesn't do that. Or we measure it by our successes or by positions, these are natural things, and they are part of life. But we are one in Christ. He looked up into the face of Jesus, he looked at godly people, he looked out in the practical reality. He saw that the walls were broken down.

Hello. He saw the needs. They affirmed the needs. So the fourth thing he did was he looked in.

Now this is a good one. Did you notice what the Bible says? The Bible says that he had a very sad face. And in fact the king, God, came to him and said to him, how come your face is so sad you're not even sick?

His face was sad. What is God trying to tell us? If you want to know what God's will is for you, look into your inside self.

Don't confuse just a feeling here. But God will bring about a burden upon you. Malachi chapter one and verse one tells us this. The burden of the word of the Lord came to Malachi concerning the people of Israel. I want to tell you today, I have a burden for our people. I've got a real burden. I've got a burden for you today. I'm burdened. I've got an inside burden. I've got a burden that you would give your life to Christ today. I've got a burden for you. I've got a burden for your family. I want you to be whole and happy and content. I've got a burden.

It gnaws at me. Do you understand what I'm saying? In a midst all the joy and the fellowship and everything, I'm preaching today with a burden. Can you feel it? I'm not just up here saying, well, let's just have a little preachy preachy on Sunday morning.

You know what? I'm just going to get up and say something that everybody will be happy with. I'm burdened. I want God to speak to me and give me a word to say to you, but I want to speak to you with a burden in my heart.

It's like, you know, when your mother comes to you and says, and my mother did it many times, son, I just want you to know I love you so much and I just really want you to get this straight. He looked in, number five, he looked to. In verse five and verse six, he looked to the king.

I mean, these verses here in verse five and verse six are just so fantastic. He says, I said to the king, if it pleases who? The king. If it pleases the king. Then he goes on in verse six and he says, he tells us, he reports, so it pleased the king. It pleased the king. Is what we're doing pleasing to the Lord? Is what you're doing pleasing to the Lord?

So here's an acid test. God has, you've been offered two jobs. You can take this job or this job and you don't know which one. And you're governed by a lot of things like this one pays a little more and this one's got better benefits and this one's here and this one, you know, is wonderful because I don't ever have to leave the town in which I live.

But if I take this one, which is actually better in that, it means I've got to go and live in this place and I don't know that I like living in another place. And you weighing up, up and down, you don't know what to do and all the rest of it. Here's where it comes.

Guys, watch this. If it pleases the king, a peace of God will come upon you. And oh, how we seek that peace of God. Forgive the interruption.

Dr. Lion insists I remind you, we're here to pray with you 24 hours a day. Our phone number is 866-899-WORD.

Jot the number down, store it in your cell. We're here to pray anytime at 866-899-9673. And we're also connecting with great resources as well. On our website, www.tewonline.org, you can sign up for the daily encouraging word right now. www.tewonline.org to receive a free copy in the mail or to receive it via email every single day. That's online at www.tewonline.org where you'll also find great resources like this. Spread God's encouraging word to your friends, a family, and community with the classic book set from Dr. Don Wilton. These nine powerful books include Forgiven, The Power of the Cross, Undefeated, God's Strategy for Successful Living, See You at the Finish Line, When God Prayed, Totally Secure, A Hope and a Future, Overcoming Discouragement, Praying for a Miracle, Defying the Odds, and the Encouragement in His Presence Devotional. To order, please visit our website at www.tewonline.org or call 866-899-WORD to order your set today.

That's just one of the many resources available online at www.tewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. So here's an acid test. God has, you've been offered two jobs. You can take this job or this job and you don't know which one. And you're governed by a lot of things like this one pays a little more and this one's got better benefits and this one's here and this one, you know, is wonderful because I don't ever have to leave the town in which I live. But if I take this one, which is actually better in that, it means I've got to go and live in this place.

And I don't know that I like living in another place. And you weighing up, up and down, you don't know what to do and all the rest of it. Here's where it comes.

Guys, watch this. If it pleases the king, a peace of God will come upon you. Sometimes you've got to stop dithering around and hovering between two opinions. And based upon what, as you look up into the face of Jesus, as you look to godly counsel. As you look into yourself and sense the burden. As you look out in a practical way and you see the reality of the options and the decisions. As you finally look to the king, Jesus, say, Lord, I just, to my best ability, I believe this is what you're telling me. And you so to speak, you pull the trigger, you say, yes, Lord, I'm going to do that. I'm telling you, you'll get an affirmation because it's like as you enter into it with all the quandaries and the questions, a peace will begin to come over you. You'll just know it's right by God. Is that a good statement?

I know it's not good English. Forgive me. It's right by God. I want to be right by God.

All right. Knowing God's will. How do you know God's will? That's it. So how do you do God's will?

Here it is. Write it down. Number one, recognize the signs. Recognize them.

If your building needs repair, recognize your building needs repair. Recognize the signs. So here's what God does when he's revealing his will to you. He brings everything together.

What does he do? He fuses all the factors that we struggle with. He brings your situation and he aligns your situation in agreement with his word, by his spirit, together with godly people, the facts as they are, and he aligns all of these things. That's how God does. If you want to do God's will, recognize the signs. Number two, identify the needs.

So now you've recognized that God's putting you in this. Now identify those needs. Name them.

What are they? What is your need before the Lord? Can you list your greatest need?

In the circumstance that you're searching for God's will. Identify that. Number three, pray the Lord. Go to the king. By the way, he invites that, Lord, I just, oh, Lord, which way? I recognize the signs and I know you're aligning them.

I'm identifying all the needs. I'm going to you. We're in a 52-day time of prayer. God will speak to you.

I've got every confidence in God. So number four, seek the wisdom. This is now doing it. Seek wisdom.

That should never stop. There are people God's placed all around you. They're not just there to help you pull the trigger.

Watch this. They're there to walk with you through it. And that begins with Jesus. I'll never leave you, never forsake you. You know, God sets us on a pathway and then he sticks with us.

He doesn't say, I want you to do something. You're on your own. No, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

And that's the wisdom of people. I see them everywhere, for example, in our church. You've been there, man. You just, you're not fair weather. There are thousands of wonderful Christian moms and dads and people and church members. You're in it, man.

You're there. You stick with it. That's a discipleship leader. That's a mentor. That's a coach. That's a leader. I'm telling you, God's given you and me scores of those people.

And they will stick with you. Seek that wisdom. That's a continual present tense. Number five, prepare the solution. You want to do God's will, prepare the solution. What's the solution? Well, if you're trying to decide on a job, the solution is call whoever it is that asked you or offered you the job and say, I accept the job.

It's no good sitting there thinking about it. Prepare the solution. Draw the plans. Do the work necessary. Get it together and do it right. Use godly people, godly wisdom. Constantly be talking to the Lord.

Do your homework. There's no shortcut to knowing and doing the will of God. It's jolly hard and it involves discipline. It involves discipline.

Number six, did I mention number six, the final point. Start the action. One of the reasons many of us battle with knowing and doing the will of God is because God keeps telling us what to do, but we never actually start and get on and do it.

Right? If you need to say no to french fries, say no to french fries. It's not going to kill you. It kills me, but it's not going to kill you. You understand what I'm saying? Stop perpetually telling everybody what you're going to do. Somebody get up and lead.

Do what you need to do. If in fact you followed God's guidelines, because God's going to give you great joy. Oh, how we pursue that great joy that only comes in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Dr. Don Wilton, our teacher here on The Encouraging Word, and you've heard him as he's been preaching and teaching from the pulpit. Now I pray you'd open your heart to what he wants to share next. You know, I love this opportunity to be able to share with you like this, and I want to thank you for tuning in and for listening. God is speaking, isn't he?

Even in our day and age today, and he sees you, and he loves you. Jesus died for you. So I'm going to ask that question. You ready to give your life to Christ? Do it right now.

I'd love to be able to help you. No prayer can save you, but God can. You pray this prayer. Make it your own prayer. Dear God, I know Jesus died on a cross for me.

I believe. I accept what you say, and I'm hearing you speak to me. Today I repent of my sin, and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. Isn't that amazing?

You know what? God has just heard your prayer, and because of Jesus, you now, my friend, are saved. Your name has been written in God's book in heaven.

Isn't that fantastic? So here's what I'm going to ask you to do. You can visit me.

Visit us at www.tewonline.org. Here's another one. You might want to write it down and make note. Call us at 866-899-9673. Listen, people tell me numbers all the time, and I can't write them down quick enough. So here it is again.

866-899-9673. I'd love to hear from you. We're on standby. We're there for you.

We're part of the same family. God bless you, my friend. If you just prayed to receive Jesus Christ along with Dr. Don Wilton moments ago, we are so excited to see what God's going to do next in your life. Dr. Don would love to put some free resources in your hands that will help you grow, and he would love to pray for you.

You can contact us at 866-899-WORD, and we'll send those resources out right away. 866-899-9673, or just write to Dr. Don. He would love to hear from you.

It's Don, D-O-N, at T-E-W, online dot O-R-G. That's Don, D-O-N, at T-E-W, online dot O-R-G. All those resources you'll find on our website as well at T-E-W, online dot O-R-G. Before we get away, closing thoughts from Dr. Don. Okay, just before you go today, I just want you to know how much I love you. You mean so much to me. And I just want you to know that with all of the things that we've talked about and the way in which God is speaking to your heart right now, we are The Encouraging Word, and we are available to you 24-7, morning, noon, night, or day. You can call a friend, one of my friends, right now, and they will encourage you, pray with you, listen to you. Isn't it great to have people around us who really care about us? You are not alone. God bless you, and be encouraged. Be Encouraging Word.