Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. The Word of God is used 70 times in the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, it shows up 70 times. 20 of the times Jesus is speaking about the will of God.
Normally with the idea that he said, I've come not to do my will but the will of Him who sent me. Paul speaks of the will of God 29 times. Peter speaks of it 7 times.
John speaks of it 4 times. In the entire Old Testament, there's only two references to the will of God in the whole Old Testament. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.
Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. I'd like you to listen to the introduction that I'm going to read from Eric Knopf's new book on the will of God. He says this, he says, The will of God is a topic every single believer references, but it's also a topic that believers understand the least.
It's become one of the most widely used religious cliches, and you've probably even said it on multiple occasions yourself. It's all part of God's will. He said, Sadly, every day, Christians reference the will of God in ways that are incorrect, hurtful and entirely unbiblical. Many of us seek personal wealth and justify extraordinary selfish decisions as part of our belief that it's God's will to make us rich. Many of us who are sick and poor believe our poverty and affliction is God's will. We nonchalantly attach God's will to every major change in our lives that needs any justification. The will of God is often trivialized, reduced on and applied to silly subject matter such as if a particular political candidate wins, it's God's will.
If it's a Christian quarterback who wins the Super Bowl, then that must be God's will. The will of God is overused, misapplied and regularly used to over spiritualize many of the simple matters of life. The will of God is also used to rationalize why tragic events have occurred. Our response to disease, human suffering, massive loss of life is usually accompanied with the justification that it's all part of God's will.
Why do we do this? We do this because we actually don't know what the will of God is. And when people don't know what the will of God is or what it means, the easiest thing to do is just declare everything to be God's will. We say this in various ways and phrases.
Maybe you've used some of them yourselves. If it's God's will, then it will happen. Nothing you can do can ever stop God's will. I guess it wasn't God's will.
Everything happens for a reason. God always prevails. God's will will always prevail. It's impossible to be outside of God's will. And if it's God's will, you can't do anything to mess it up. And if it's God's will, it will always succeed. Now, those statements that he read are sometimes true.
Half the time, not really. And a lot of them has no truth in it whatsoever. See, for us, I think the will of God is a mystery, just a mystery to us. We don't understand that at all that most people that have had me involved in our lives want to know what the will of God is.
And it's almost always something like this. Is it the will of God that I take that job? Is it a will of God that we move to that city?
Is it God's will that I marry this person? And we find ourselves that's going around sort of befuddled with this whole idea of God's will. In fact, I believe that Christians use this whole statement of God's will to try to compensate for the choices and the decisions that they make every day in life.
You might not realize this, but probably do. We make more decisions as people now than any group of people that have ever lived in our country. Columbia researcher Sheena Iyengar, she said that she found that the average American makes about 70 decisions every day for the average. That would be twenty five thousand five hundred and fifty decisions every year. And if you live to be 70, that be one million seven hundred and eighty eight thousand five hundred and fifty decisions that we make in our lifetime. Albert Camus, the French existentialist said life is the sum of all of our choices.
So if you put these hundred and one million seven hundred eighty eight thousand five hundred choices together, you know what you'll end up with you. That's what happens in our lives. Princeton philosopher Walter Kaufman says that Americans suffer from the side of phobia. We fear making decisions and that creates anxiety. That's one of the reasons, he says in his article, that Americans want to see psychics. They want psychics to help them make decisions.
Americans go and see people to read tea leaves. Americans love their horoscope and astrology, all designed to help us figure out to make decisions. For Christians, it's a little bit different, but it's especially difficult because Christians have decided that what I want to do to make decisions is I want to try to hit the target, the exact target of God's will.
That's what I want to do. I want to know if it's God's will and I want to hit that target. And so it sort of works like this. The premise is for each and every one of our decision, God has a single perfect will. Every decision we make. The purpose then becomes discover God's individual will and then make the decisions in accordance with what his individual will is. The process is utilize inner impressions or outward signs that the Holy Spirit must be using to communicate God's perfect will to you in the moment. And the proof is and this is I hear this often is inner peace.
That'll be the proof. Now, for a lot of us, then we don't have inner peace and we still struggle because we're not sure what God's perfect will is. But that idea of inner peace is not so reliable.
I've actually known someone who was married and Christian and had a girlfriend. And it was God's will. Because they had total peace.
I've total peace with this. You see, that is a very difficult thing to ascribe to God's will. So I like the Bible to sort of speak for itself here. If you look at the term, the will of God, it's it's used 70 times in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
It shows up 70 times. 20 of the times Jesus is speaking about the will of God. Normally with the idea that he said, I've come not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. Paul speaks of the will of God 29 times. Peter speaks of it seven times.
John speaks of it four times. And in the entire Old Testament, there's only two references to the will of God in the whole Old Testament. So I want to look at what the Bible says about the will of God and sort of help us think our way through this. As you know, last week I started a series put on your thinking cap and we dealt with the unfathomable God. And we found out that God is unfathomable. He tells us he doesn't think like us. He doesn't act like us.
The way he thinks and acts is infinitely higher than the way we think and act. And so when we ask God, when we go through difficult circumstances, tell me the why. What are you doing?
Where are you? God doesn't answer. He never answered Job. He would not answer why.
That was not an answer Job got. God basically says, look, what I want you to do when you're in no circumstances is trust me. And that was the whole message of the Book of Job. So this week we're going to deal with the will of God. And the first place I want to look is Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five.
And verse 15 through verse 17. And I want to tell you, first of all, why it's important that you know God's will. If you don't know God's will. The Bible says you're a fool.
So it's a pretty important thing to try to understand what is the will of God? And so in Ephesians five, Paul writing this epistle to the Church of Ephesus in verse 15, he starts out and he says, therefore, be careful how you walk. Walk is a metaphor for live. Any time you see about your walk, especially in the New Testament, he's talking about be careful how you live. He said, you're going to have a choice here. He said, not as unwise men, but wise men. He said, look, if you're going to live, you should live under the idea of following wisdom rather than not following wisdom and being unwise. Then he says in verse 16, make the most of your time. That's X agarazzo is the word and it means redeem your time, not just make the most of it, redeem your time in a sense of being wise.
But then he says this. He said, make the most of your time because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
So there's your choice. You can either understand what the will of the Lord is or you can be foolish. I'm afraid when it comes to something like the will of God, an awful lot of Christians are very, very foolish in how we understand the will of God and what we see it to be. Turn with me now to just a few pages to your right to Colossians chapter one. Colossians one. And verse nine, again, the apostle Paul. And this time he says sort of the same thing, but in a different way. Paul says.
For this reason, also. Since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask. Paul's telling the Church of Colossae, there's something I pray for you every day, every day I'm praying for this for you. He said, I don't cease to pray for you and to ask what that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will. In all spiritual wisdom and understanding, I would pray you would know what the will of God is.
What would the result of that be? Verse 10, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord so you'll have a better life. That part, he said, is what I want to tell you, because what you're going to find is the will of God is all about your relationship with God. That's always what the will of God is talking about.
And we have a tendency to talk about it in very different terms in that one more passage. And that's Romans Chapter 12. Romans 12 and verses one and two. Now, Romans 12, as I've told you in the past, is the applicational section of the book from here to the end of the book. In the first eight chapters, the apostle Paul tells you everything God has done for you and what the grace of God is. He tells you how the Spirit of God works in your life. He tells you how you should relate now to sin after you're a believer.
Then in 9, 10 and 11, it's a parenthetical section about the nation Israel. But now in 12, verse one, he picks it back up to the main idea. And in the first eight chapters, he tells you what God has done for you.
That's the grace of God. Now he wants you to say, now, what do you need to do? What do you need to do for yourself? And here's what he says. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. In light of everything that God has done for me, my first response to God is this.
You have my life. I'll do anything, anywhere at any cost for you. I'll make myself a living sacrifice. I'll give my life to you because you gave your life for me.
That's the first thing he says. Then notice what he says next in the second verse. Do not be conformed to this world. In other words, you can't keep being the person you've always been. That's not what being born again as a Christian or being indwelt by the Spirit of God means. For some of us, it's sad, but that's the way we end up acting. We don't change.
I think we're just happy we have fire insurance and we're going to go to heaven when we die. And that'll be fine, but I'm not changing anything. He says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed. Metamorphosis is the word. Just like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Same word, metamorphosis. He said, but be transformed. How?
By the renewing of your mind. I'm going to have to think different. You see, I'm going to have to think different.
The old Bill had his own way of looking at the world. I got that from my friends. I got that from culture.
I got that from my parents. But now, I'm going to have to renew my mind because I have to hear what God says. So, I have to renew my mind. Well, what is the truth of the word of God? What does God say? I'm going to have to start thinking differently. Now, notice, whenever that happens, he said, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
He said, that's what will end up happening. So, each time here that the will of God is used, it's all designed to how you and I live. This is the will of God for us. It's called his moral will. How do we live?
How should we do this? This is clearly declared as the will of God. Now, the question is, but doesn't God have a bigger will? Yes. He has a declarative will or a decreed of will.
This is a big time will. In other words, the Abrahamic Covenant. God made an unconditional covenant with Abraham. OK, is that God's decreed of will?
Yes. He said, I'm going to bless you. And it's no conditions on it. It's going to last forever.
I'm going to do this. See, God makes statements just like that. He does this over and over again. And what you're going to see is this way that this decreed of will is always present. You've heard me say this in the past many times. The worst thing that can happen to you can happen to you.
Why? God's decreed of will. See, God told me once I'm born again into his family, he'll never leave me nor forsake me. God told me that when I'm absent from my body, be a present with the Lord. God told me this is God's decreed of will. He said it. Nothing can change that. You see, nothing's going to change that at all. Another thing I've said in the past is that you and I, our futures are very, very bright.
In fact, they're perfect. And you say, well, how do you know that? And I say, I read the end of the book. We win.
That's what it says. That's God's decreed of will. You see, every knee will bow, every tongue confess. We'll go to a place with no more sorrow, no more tears.
How do I know? God's decreed of will. He willed that.
You see, but the idea of his decreed of will, it has a certain parameter, and then our individual wills also have their own responsibility. I want to illustrate this by you going to the book of Acts chapter 2 with me. The book of Acts chapter 2 and verse 22. Acts 2, 22. This is Peter speaking right in the birth of the church.
But he blends these two together perfectly. Watch what he says. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. Okay, he's talking about Jesus and how great Jesus was when he was on earth. And then he says, this man, now watch, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. So, according to this verse, why was Jesus turned over, delivered over to be crucified?
Why? God decreed it. And I say often when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary had a little lamb. In other words, he was only born to die, and he did. You see, that's why John the Baptist said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
How? He's going to go to the cross. You see, is that part of God's decreed of will?
Yes, that was it right from the beginning on. He said, that's my decreed of will, but watch. He then says, the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put them to death. Who killed Jesus? Godless men, evil men. Did they in their own will decide to kill him?
Yes. But notice there's a decreed of will, and there's an individual will here. He goes on in verse 24 and says, but God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. The death and burial and resurrection of Christ is our hope. Because Christ was raised to the newness of life, so can you and I be raised to the newness of life. All of our hope is on this. It all works out in a very, very real way.
But I want you to see how this works. It works in such an easy way. There are things that God decrees, but it doesn't mean you and I are less responsible. What we often do when we talk about the will of God is terrible, horrible things happen. And then we say that God did that.
God did that. Now, if you read in the book of James, James says that God says, I cannot even tempt someone to sin. Not only can I not sin, but I can't even tempt someone to sin. That's not God. She has the enemy, Satan and the temptations like he did with Christ in Matthew four. There's there's temptation that comes, but that's not from God. You see, and we end up getting kind of mixed up in this.
A small child is accosted and kidnapped and then murdered and left in a ditch somewhere. And you say, well, that was God did that. That's the will of God. God didn't do that. God sovereign over that.
And I'll talk about sovereignty next week. But God didn't do that. See, evil did that.
Man did that. Sin did that. God does not usurp. You see, he does not usurp our will. So secondly, God has a permissive will. Under his decreed of will, he also has a permissive will. So the best way I can illustrate like this is that God's will for you not to sin. Or how many of you think God wants you to sin all constantly? It's God's will.
Right. How many times he told us, don't do that. OK, so it's God's will that we don't sin.
Do you? Wait a minute. It's God's will. You can't stop God's will.
See how this works. He has a permissive will. He allows that. Now, he's sovereign over it. And we'll talk about that again next time. But the idea behind it is that's the way this works.
Let me illustrate. Go with me to Second Peter, Chapter three. Second Peter, Chapter three. Now, the first seven verses is Peter is dealing with trying to encourage believers.
And he says, look, I know you guys are getting mocked. And the reason they're getting mocked is the early church, just like the church today, believes the Lord's coming back. They believe the Lord's coming back. And I believe that's part of God's decree of will. The Lord's coming back.
But the people in which they were witnessing laughed at him and mocked him. They said, if the Lord's coming back, where is he? You said he's coming back, but I don't see him. By the way, the same thing can happen today.
You could have a friend that tells you the same thing. You say he's coming back, but he he hasn't been back for a long, long time. Well, this verse will help you notice what he says in verse eight.
He said, do not let this one fact escape your notice. Beloved, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day. OK, so how long has the Lord waited so far? Two days. It's two days.
So don't be in such a hurry. You see, he's the Lord, he's eternal. We said, no, it's two thousand years and he's not back yet.
No, two days of the Lord. Then he says this. The Lord is not slow about his promise. He's not slow to fulfill his decree of will. He's not slow about it. He said, as some count slowness, but he's patient toward you. Why is he patient with men? Next verse.
Not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Why is he waiting? He wants mankind to come to repentance, to be saved.
That's why he's waiting. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station, by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-11-06 01:08:26 / 2023-11-06 01:18:36 / 10