Living In God’s Will

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? Doing alright today? Well, I trust so, bless your heart. This is indeed your good friend, Bob Cook, and we’re back together again you and I, enjoying the blessed, inerrant, infallible, eternal Word of God, the Bible. And we’re right now walking through First Peter, we’re in chapter three. We got to this verse which says, “It is better if the will of God be so,” and that of course is part of the rundown of things that have to do with an effective witness. “Be ready, always,” he says, “to give an answer.” It starts with making God, really, to have His place in your heart as God. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. It continues with being ready on the job. Whenever God opens the door, you’re willing and ready to share your savior. It involves meekness, that sense of respect and appreciation for another human being. It involves what the Bible calls fear which is, in this case, more of a wholesome respect and awe in that you’re dealing with a never-dying soul. It involves having a clean conscience, having a good conscience, verse 16. And it involves then, in the next place, the knowledge that you’re in God’s will; it is better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing.

That’s where we were the last time we got together. A good witness, is closely connected with the consciousness of being in the will of God. Now, I suppose one of the most common questions that you come across in seminars and in question and answer sessions, certainly it’s been true through the many years, during which I have dealt with young people; it seems like I’ve been dealing with young folk all my life, and that’s a wonderful experience, believe me. But so many times the question would surface, “How do you determine the will of God?” And oftentimes, it’s asked within the context of a future determination of life. It means, “How do I know what to become? What my work will be, whom shall I marry, where will I live, and what will I be 10 years from now?” The will of God oftentimes is thus construed in a future sense. Really it’s a very simple matter when you come down to it, and I wanna talk with you about it for a while today, and if it spills over maybe into tomorrow. First of all, you base any of your concept of the will of God, you base it on God’s word. You base it on God’s word. God has spoken unto us through His Son and through His written word, the Bible. “To the law and to the testimony for if they speak not after this law, it is because there is no light in them,” Isaiah said.

What does the Bible say is a very good question to ask, concerning any decision in life which you are about to make. What does the Bible say about it? Now, there are many subjects on which the Bible is silent. But there are many other areas of life, where, there is definite truth that applies to it. You do well to read the Book of Proverbs, often, a friend of mine reads one chapter a day. That guarantees that he’ll be reading the Book of Proverbs clear through each month. And he has become, in the process, an exceedingly wise man. The answers to many of our questions about the will of God can be found clearly stated in the Bible. And in that case, God is not going to guide you super naturally, if you refuse to look at the roadmap. It’s a good deal like the person who is on a trip touring somewhere, becomes confused as to where he is. His wife says, “Well, why don’t you look at the map?” And he says, “Why? We’ll pray.” So he prays, “Lord, help me find my way.” Well now, that’s a very good prayer and I’ve prayed it, I assure you, on occasion, but he’d be far smarter to consult the map before he got lost, as well as during and after.

Well, some of the passages that affect your knowledge of the will of God are as follows. I’ve just run down a few of them, and certainly I haven’t exhausted the subject. You people who study your Bible, you know that when you hear it. Our Lord Jesus said if you wanna be closely related to Him, you have to do the will of God. “Whoever shall do the will of God is my brother, my mother, and so on.” You’ll find that passage in Mark Chapter 3, there He said, “Behold thy mother and thy brethren are outside and calling for you and you better go see them.” And He said, “Whoever does the will of God, that’s the person who’s related to me.” God puts high value on obedience to His will. The very start of your Christian life involved the will of God of which you were born, not of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, the will of God. And David served his generation by the will of God. You serve other people by fitting in to God’s revealed will for you and for them. You consider God’s will when you’re gonna take a trip. Paul said, “I want to continue my journey and come and see you, by the will of God,” Romans 1:10.

You follow the will of God as the Holy Spirit of God who dwells the believer prays through you. He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. You pray in the will of God. And what you actually are in life is part of God’s will. Paul said, “I’m on an apostle, but I am one by the will of God.” He mentions this in several of his epistles. You express the will of God in your Christian giving. “This they did not as we hope, but first gave themselves unto us, unto God and then unto us by the will of God.” 2 Corinthians Chapter 8, “Your heart is involved in doing the will of God.” Paul in Ephesians talks about doing the will of God from the heart. God’s will is that you live a holy life. “This is the will of God, even your sanctification that ye should abstain from fornication,” a holy, morally clean life. “God’s will is that you be thankful, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Both of those verses in 1 Thessalonians. “It’s God’s will that with good well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” That’s a verse in 1 Peter that we talked about previously.

And the whole thrust of your life is to be the will of God, that for the rest of his life he should live not to the lusts of men but to the will of God. And then you have the blessed promise that if you do God’s will, your life will remain. “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” A great verse in 1 John 2:17. Now, I just went down a whole list of verses that have to do with the will of God. And just to give you an overview of what the Bible itself says about that. Your witness is effective in direct proportion, to how clearly you are aware of being in the will of God; if you’re uncertain about what you’re doing, your witness will have an uncertain sound to it. You’d be like the minister who said, “We must all repent more or less and be saved as it were, or we shall be lost in a manner of speaking.” [chuckle] It qualify everything. They say that the mark of an educated person is that he qualifies his answer with this, “So far as I know or at that time.” I learned that lesson years and years ago, and it’s become a habit just to listen for the qualifications that people put into their statements. You know exactly where they’re coming from by the number of verbal hedges they built around their statements. [chuckle]

But when you’re sharing Christ with people there isn’t any room for hedging, is there? You have to know for sure where you stand. Are you indeed committed to Christ as Lord of your life? Do you indeed realize that the Holy Spirit dwells within you, as a born again believer, and that He desires to speak through your lips and look through your eyes and reach love and help through your hands, and guide your feet, to determine your life, in other words. The will of God must, is what I’m trying to say, must be real to you if you are going to be an effective witness for Christ. How do you achieve all of this? Number one, the step of personal commitment is there, we’ve been talking about that. Be sure that the Lord Jesus is Lord of your life, and renew that relationship of lordship daily, and hour by hour. “The tendency of the fire is to go out,” my old boss, Vic Corey used to say. “The tendency of the fire is to go out, you have to keep it stoked, keep it burning, and there needs to be many times each day a re-commitment of yourself to the will of God, so that you’re always aware, consciously aware of serving God’s eternal purpose, because He is Lord of your life.” That’s the first thing.

Second, find out what the Bible says about any given subject. Now, the Bible is silent on some things, perhaps many things we might say, but it does speak clearly on basic issues that determine life and destiny. Obey what the Bible clearly teaches. Don’t think that by neglecting the Word of God but saying a prayer now and again, you’re going to achieve a knowledge of His will. God will not miraculously speak to you if you’re deliberately neglecting His written message. So go to the Word of God, “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me,” our Lord Jesus said, as recorded in John 5:39. So, that’s the first thing. Go to the Word of God, make sure you know what the Bible says about any given decision. Then second, pray and talk it over with your Lord. A good way to form a basis for intelligent praying is to analyze any decision situation with pencil and paper, get one of these legal pads, a yellow legal pad and a pen or pencil and write down the things that are for and against, the pros and the cons. Write it down, analyze it. What is the basis for all of this and what will happen if I do it this way or that way, and so on?

Analyze it, think about it, then get down and pray about it. The Bible says, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” There is no doubt in my mind because I’ve lived through it, that if you think about a matter and then pray earnestly about it, the Holy Spirit of God will see to it that the answer comes to you, concerning what is the will of God in the matter. I’ll come back to this briefly the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today have Your way with us, and grant us to serve Thee in the will of God, in Jesus name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!