God's individual will - what really matters I
Vern Peterman · Jun 6, 2004
Will of God, No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826237564990

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

By the way, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the situation of how Hal came up with discovering this heart condition. He had planned for some time to make a bicycle trip from, I guess, the Portland, Oregon area down to Eureka, California, kind of along the Oregon-Northern California coast. Bicycle trip about 500 miles. Well, as it turns out, hadn't gotten on his bicycle since he did a trip several years ago around the perimeter of France. Well, I mean, he's been doing other things to keep active, but just hadn't done any bicycling conditioning. Anyway, I guess his daughter Lisa says, well, you know, you really ought to be trying something, you know, a little bit before you start on this 500 mile trip.

And so, you know, she and her husband went with Hal on this little trip, and it was after that trip that this little heart problem got discovered. So it was a good thing that Lisa insisted on, hey, let's give this a try, and that things were discovered rather than being out in the middle of some remote area along the Oregon or Northern California coast, and then discovering, you know, you've got this heart condition. So anyway, that worked out. For a bad condition, it worked out pretty well. So anyway. Okay, you've you've got Like a sheet here.

Everybody should have a One of these and the idea is that you'll hold on to this here over the next few weeks for four notes Because we'll be you know, this will be our home stretch Okay, and we'll be looking as we've been pointing to here the individual will of God for each believer We start off with a big picture.

Here's God's sovereign will and That includes everything from you know, here's what's going to happen to the universe And here is how the Lord Jesus Christ is destined to be the Messiah, is destined to reign over the millennium, but is also the one through whom all those saved out of the old creation will be brought into the new creation. And we talked for three weeks about our position in Christ. So here is something that is true of each individual believer, but is sovereign. and irreversible. We also talked for several weeks now about the moral will of God, that God makes it clear in Scripture what is his moral will, but that here in the church age the Lord has made it quite clear that believers are to live out God's moral will, not by the law, not by their own efforts, but by the very life of Christ. Now as we look at God's individual will, we've got seven points here, and let's just quickly go over them, and then I want to do a little purposeful backtracking. The first point we have is scripture for the individual will for the believer. The second one is the Holy Spirit, and thirdly there we have godly wisdom, and on the reverse side, mature counsel, personal desires, circumstances, and special guidance.

So those are some of the things we'll be going over in these next several weeks. But do you notice that before we even start that one scripture, we've got some lines above there. That's not by accident, okay? Because there's a couple of points we need to make here that are pivotal. I've listed these seven things. Let's see if I can get seven fingers out. There we go.

I've listed these seven things But they're not equal in priority. And that is, as we look at these seven things, the one that has priority, listed first, is Scripture. Why would that be first? Why would Scripture be first in the things on the list? Why would it be priority? It's the door through which we find out about everything else.

We're not making circumstances absolute. Circumstances aren't God's will in an absolute sense. That's not the last and final measure, is it? Circumstances are not. Scripture is the ultimate measure of everything else. And one person has put it this way, we don't measure scripture or anything else just by our experience. We measure everything, including our experience, by scripture. So that's point number one, is the priority in this, even though we've listed the seven, they're not of equal priority. Scripture is going to be the measuring stick for everything else. The other thing to look at here is that if we think about God's individual will, God's individual will only applies to those things that are spiritually significant.

Is God intimately concerned over the color of Bob's socks? God's pacing the floor of heaven, wringing his hands over the color of Bob's socks. Probably not. Probably not. See, if you start with that, you say, okay, we can all chuckle about that. Now maybe we say, okay, how about the color of Vern's pants? Is God terribly concerned about the color of Vern's pants? You might be if they were blaze orange with purple polka dots, but you might think so.

But nonetheless, I mean, the truth is, that there are areas in our life where they're just plain not spiritually significant. We have choice within those areas and God's not saying, boy, you better make sure you got the blue socks on today. Those are not things that God is pacing the floor of heaven. Boy, man, I sure hope Vern does not wear his blaze orange suit today. I bring that up because my son actually has one. With a hat, and socks, and shoes, and belt to go with it. Anyway, okay. Was that right? Probably not. I might get to see it in a couple weeks here. But I think that's a key thing to look at here.

The Lord does indeed give us areas in which He says, you're free to make this choice versus that one. And God is not terribly concerned over the details of those particular things. And so I think that's one thing, is it's important for us not to go looking for fine details of the will of God where It's not something the Lord is concerned that we make a right choice about. Now, how do we know what those details are?

Richard? I was going to make a point here that actually, if you're talking about scripture, that's where you find detail. And Paul has expressed this, John has down there, Peter, all the New Testament writers, has expressed that actually in detail. It's the level of detail we need, isn't it? Yeah. That's the level of detail we need is what's laid out in Scripture.

Why is God not concerned about the color of Bob's socks? I don't think anyway. Why is something like that something the Lord's concerned about. Well, the thing is that there's more concrete things to be concerned about than worrying about somebody's socks or pants or whatever. If we are to dig into Scripture, the answer is there. Okay, alright. If we look at it Scripture addresses the things that count. Scripture addresses the things that count. And that's one of the key things as we look at God's individual will.

God is not going to reveal, it's not going to be in First Hesitations 2.5, where the Perry's ought to move and when. You didn't look up in the scripture and find here's the chapter and verse that says, by golly, they're supposed to move to Cortez. If God had laid out all those fine details, we certainly would have had a much larger Bible, right? And what would be very clear is we'd be coming with big dollies, hand trucks, to bring God's will here.

Instead, what we find is the Lord lays out the picture here. And it's within that that we look for God's will. Ah, okay, yes. We have the mind of Christ. And is that something that comes and goes? You may wonder if your mind comes and goes, but we have the mind of Christ. That's something we have positionally. Yeah, we have positionally.

Scripture reveals that. Now, the first thing we have on the list here is Scripture. And certainly scripture is going to reveal things that are God's sovereign will. It's going to reveal God's moral will. But it doesn't give details on, you know, should the Perry's move to Cortez? Or should Bob put that color of socks on? Now, if that's the case, why do we list scripture here as the first thing for God's individual will for the believer? Why is it first on the list? Why do we say it's priority?

What happens is this tells us what's important. It tells us what's of value. It tells us what's of value. What's valuable, what isn't. What matters, what doesn't. See that? Scripture tells us what's of value. So even though it doesn't say the Perry's shout moved to Cortez.

It does say, here's what's valuable, here's what's important, here's what really matters. Paul wrote at the end of Philippians, he said, it's extremely important that I get filet mignon every evening, right? Is that what he wrote? That's in the footnotes, right? Special version.

What you see there is he makes statements, this is what matters, this is what doesn't. He says, I was the tribe of Benjamin, I followed the law, I did everything right. What level of values did he put on it? He says, that's rubbish. So what do we have? We've got a statement that this is what's valuable.

When he comes to the end of Philippians, he says, you know, hey, I can do with or without certain things and I've learned to do either way. So what that tells you is that what's valuable, what isn't. So we get from scripture just a sense of priorities. What counts? What really matters? And that's valuable in the midst of trying to determine God's will. What really matters? What counts? What are the things that are important? That's valuable to know. So why don't, and I've got this cute little granddaughter.

She's on August 22nd going to be two years old, okay? She's as cute as can be, and Nancy and I just love to babysit her. Last night, about yesterday afternoon, my son called and said, would you babysit Abby? And we waited about two-tenths of a second and said yes. Now, we would not hesitate to say, of course we'll babysit her, but we don't for a minute think that we're going to put her behind the wheel of a car and let her drive. Why not?

She doesn't have a driver's license. This is key. But one of the things is she has no idea what's important. To her, you've got this little, oh, that knob, that makes the volume go up. She has no idea what's important. You notice that? I mean, this is one thing about infants. They come into the world, and they think they know what's important. I'm hungry, I need to be changed, I'm cold, I'm hot, whatever. But really, they have no sense of what's important.

And this tells us what's important. God's Word tells us what's important. And that's why Paul writes to Timothy, His last letter, so far as we have any record to Timothy, he's in the last chapters of his last letter and he talks about God's word. He says, all scripture is inspired, it is profitable. Okay? Profitable. And then he lays out all the things it is profitable for. Scripture is laying out, here's what's important. Something else scripture does that's way outside of human perspective, is Scripture also sets a time perspective for making decisions.

Time perspective. Paul writes and he says, the things that we're currently going through are not worthy to be compared to my 50th birthday party. No? What's the time perspective? How much time is he talking about? Yeah, the eternal perspective. That's the other aspect that Scripture gives us. We not only have a sense of what's valuable, but the time perspective, we make individual personal decisions in view of eternity. What's happening is I am living this day for that day. By that day I mean that day I go to be with the Lord. I live this day for that day. And that's a perspective that scripture gives us that we don't get from just observing the world around us, do we? And the world isn't going to give us that perspective either, is it? The world isn't going to come up to you with that perspective. So that's the second key thing. Scripture is going to give us those values. What's important? What isn't? Scripture is going to give us the time perspective. Now, what else is scripture going to do? What else is scripture going to do? See, there's an extra pen needed there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Value, time perspective, what else? How we should live day to day. Certainly it's going to give us, you know, yeah, how we live day to day. How do we walk? I would put it this way. Scripture gives a who perspective. It's in view of Christ. It's in view of Christ.

If you look at it, part of the problem that the baby has when the baby comes into the world, we're delighted to have them, every single one, but the baby really doesn't know who is important. What's a baby's first likelihood in terms of who they're going to get centered upon?

Mother. Okay. And mom and dad end up being important. It was interesting this last week, our granddaughter, who's of course trying to put things together, she started talking to my son Randy and she said, Daddy God? And Randy says, No. Mommy God? No. And how do you explain to this kid that's not quite two what this whole picture's about? But the point is, this kid's starting to form some ideas.

And how does my son even know how to begin directing? Who? Who's the who that counts here? That ultimately, even parents, as much as they want to have this relationship with the kid, ultimately we desire for our kids to have a relationship with the Lord. we get from scripture not just a what's important, not just a what's the time perspective, but who is this centered upon? What are the relationships that count as the additional dimension there? One of the things that is important too, both from the world and frankly from some of Christendom, We can get this idea that if you're going through hard times, it's because something is spiritually wrong in your life.

Have you ever seen that? I've even seen churches that are going through something, you know, hard, something difficult, must have done something wrong. You must be, either in the past you've done something wrong, or you're sinning now. You heard that? Yeah. Now, biblically, is that true? No. We look at the apostles as the Lord sent them out and they encountered all kinds of trouble. Was it because they were doing something wrong?

No. So scripture allows us to look at situations and assess them truthfully. Assess them truthfully. Now, one of the other reasons, and to get to specifics here, why we put Scripture first on the list, and why we say that Scripture is the doorway into these other six items, is that it is because of Scripture that we have a way of knowing the place and the balance of each of these other six places, these other six items. So scripture is the measuring stick for these other six areas, the Holy Spirit, godly wisdom, mature counsel, personal desires, circumstances, and special guidance.

Let me give you a for instance. Have you ever heard people come up with some statement and it starts off something in the nature of God told me that God said, you know, God told me this. Have you heard that? Okay. Now, how do they know that that's what God told them? Okay. Alright.

They could say by faith that that's what God told them. One of the things that we look at here, and of course we're going to be looking at this in more detail over the next several weeks, one of the things that we look at here is one of the questions that we apply to, did God really tell me this, is what does Scripture have to say about it?

There are some fellows who are in some of our prisons who will tell you that God told them to do what put them in prison. I've met some of them. And they think that God told them to do what put them in prison. Some of them are not in prison, they're in other places.

But anyway, key thing, Scripture needs to be put on the top of the list here, in part because each of these areas, while valid, needs always to be tested by Scripture. Always to be tested by Scripture. You've heard of this group called the Bereans in Scripture, Acts 17. What was notable about the Bereans? Yeah, and who are they testing? Alright, and explicitly though, who in Acts 17 were they testing? Whose word were they evaluating? Paul's! Isn't that something? They're evaluating Paul's word with Scripture. This is the standard by which we're going to measure what you say.

Do you recall what was said of the Bereans? Or you can even look it up. What was said of the Bereans? Take a look. Paul mentions that day and night phrase a little bit later in Acts, but take a look there. How are these Bereans characterized? Did it say they looked at the scriptures and it was okay, but it wasn't all that great? What does it say about them? See if it was true. They searched it eagerly. You notice the characteristic there. What did it say about them also? Ah, isn't that interesting? It says they're more noble-minded for doing so. So it says this is a high priority.

Remember we said Scripture says what's valuable? So it's giving you a value judgment, isn't it? That examining the Scripture to test everything with Scripture, Scripture is telling you the value there of doing that. and it says they're more noble for doing so. Act 1711.

Now, what about the fellow who says, you know, what I do is I go down the Colorado Boulevard And as I drive along, I ask the Lord questions. And if the light's green, I know that that's what I'm supposed to do. And if the light's red, I know I'm not supposed to do that. And if it's yellow, be careful. Now, is that a good way to do things? You better do it. You better do what? Obey the lights? Yeah, you better obey the lights, yes. I didn't say just go through them all. What's the problem with using that method? I mean, that could be fairly clear, wouldn't it? You ask your questions and you get red and green and yellow, you know. What's wrong with using that method? Would that be what you'd recommend to folks?

Everybody else is asking the same question. Well, it seems just like there's a sense of obedience there that you have to obey stopping or going or cautioning or whatever. You think that you're actually going back to the old thing of law. You're fighting law against grace or whatever. There's that aspect to it, isn't there?

But one of the key things is as we look at these principles that are laid out for the individual will of God, First of all, everything has to be tested by scripture. It's possible if you just ask, you know, we're going to go through the lights and just ask, you know, is it red, green, or yellow, that one of the things we're looking at is we're not testing anything by scripture, if we do that. That's point one, okay? And the other things, what about godly wisdom? You see, we're not using scripture as the standard to test everything.

Turn, if you would, to 1 Thessalonians 5.21. Isn't this kind of the case that I don't like my socks? Okay. You have responsibility. This isn't something that God's going to worry too much about. Sure. I don't think. Probably not.

1 Thessalonians 5.21. Paul is in kind of the end of his letter, and to put it in context, He's dealt with a church that has been concerned. The reason for the letter is they've gotten out of whack in this one question.

Somebody's come to them and told them, the Lord's already come. And so they're all alarmed. And so he says, here is the truth about the Lord's return. And so he wants to set them square on that. So in 521, it's part of a series of kind of quick pieces of wisdom.

He says, but examine everything. The New American Standard inserts carefully, hold fast to that which is good. It means that we need to go with an examination of things, test things. How do they test? And of course, Acts 17.11 is telling us, test things with scripture. And so we need to look at everything and examine each thing by Scripture.

Again, what is Scripture going to tell us? Scripture is not going to spell out, buy this house, buy this car, don't buy that one. All kinds of questions we could ask that Scripture doesn't give a specific answer for. But Scripture does give us things that tell us what's valuable, what isn't valuable. Scripture is going to give us a time perspective.

If I look at the Chevy commercials, it's going to tell me that if I buy this car, I will be eternally satisfied and fulfilled. That's what the Chevy ad is going to tell me. If I just buy this cream and put it on my face, all things will be made blissful. That's what the advertising is telling me.

What Paul is telling them is to test everything by scripture. Is this for real? Is this for real? Test everything by scripture. Get the scriptural balance as to what's important. Is this really true? Having been through an advertising class as part of the business curriculum I went through, let me tell you what they're designed to do.

The bottom line, every advertisement is designed to make you dissatisfied. Right? Because you are to be dissatisfied and then be satisfied with the product or service. That's the bottom line for all advertising. It's to make you dissatisfied with your current circumstance and then satisfied with the product or service. That's the idea.

The problem is that a lot of that is out of whack with the biblical perspective on things. And so that's why If we look even in our modern world, we test everything with scripture. Because then we know we have an absolute right understanding of what's valuable. We have an absolute right understanding of the time perspective. And everything gets asked the question, how does this relate to our relationship with Jesus Christ? How does that get weighed with our relationship with Jesus Christ? The fellow who is asking the traffic lights the questions is failing to ask the other questions. Also, in some cases, may be assuming that God cares about things that aren't really valuable at all. Do I buy the blue Chevy or the yellow Chevy? Okay? Let's think about that.

This is Gideon. Now, let's turn to it. This is the book of Judges. So here's Gideon. That's an important question. It is one frequently referred to, frequently used. Let's take a look at it. To give some context, the Lord had been in conversation with Gideon, and Gideon was told, you know, here's what's going to happen, okay? And here's what I want you to do. And so what happens here is Gideon, in verse 36 of Judges 6, Gideon said to God, and if you'll deliver Israel through me as you have spoken, So what had the Lord told him? Already, right? So then what happened afterwards here? Behold I will put out a fleece, who's speaking? Gideon's going to put out this fleece of wool on the threshing floor.

If there's dew on the fleece only and if it's dry on all the ground, then I will know that you will deliver Israel through me as you have spoken.' And it was so. And when he rose early in the morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water. Then he did the reverse. Do not let your anger burn against me that I speak once more. Please let me make a test once more with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and let there be dew on all the ground. God did so that night, for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground."

Do you see what's happening there? Even as Gideon spoke, did he already have God's information as to what he was supposed to do and what was supposed to happen? Yes. So was this a determining of God's will, or was it simply a matter of I'm not sure I believe you." Yeah, this is really a matter of God was patient with his testing. God endured it.

But even in the context, what you see is God had already spoken. And Gideon was not the least bit doubtful about what God had said. He says, as you have spoken. So Gideon was not unclear about what he was supposed to do. He was simply lacking in faith.

So I would suggest that a lot of folks will use this as some sort of a magical indicator. I can say, if God does this, then this. And what Gideon put out was a miraculous test too. Let me give you a for instance where somebody used a fleece and I think it ended up, and I use that as a metaphor, somebody used a fleece and it ended up causing them to disobey God's will. Here's the for instance.

I know a young lady who was prepared to marry an unbeliever. She knew this guy was not a believer. She said, If you do not want me to marry this guy, then make me dead tomorrow morning." Her wedding day. Okay? Now, was it a miraculous thing she was asking for? Basically. Yeah, she was asking for a miracle.

She didn't believe what God had already laid out in Scripture to be true. So, in a sense, what Gideon was doing here, laying out a fleece, was not an act of faith, whereas we're called upon to believe. God responded to it and was graceful. Here's God's grace in the Old Testament. God was graceful in the midst of it, but it is not given as an example. Even Gideon, the second time he's doing this, has said, Lord, don't be mad at me about this. So he recognizes that one, God had already clearly stated what his intent was and what he was going to do. And here, that God had a right to be mad.

That Gideon's lack of acting in faith upon what God had said wasn't a good thing. So anyway, to answer your question, the putting out of a fleece I think we need to be careful. I'm not saying that there isn't some sense in it, but we need to be careful. Gideon asked for a miracle twice in a row.

And he asked for a miracle only to confirm miraculously what God had already told him was true. And I would suggest to you that since we are called to act by faith on what he's laid out as true, that that's not God's you know, primary method of telling believers what they ought and ought not to do.

We will talk later, though, about circumstances, which are, I would say, a more valuable indicator. And I would say, frankly, it was one of the ways that the Lord made it clear that Nancy and I were supposed to come here. three years ago this Sunday that we first came here to Kennedy. And the Lord, partly through circumstances, but other means as well, made it clear, here's where I want you to go. Now, as we, oh man, I'm out of time, way out of time. As we look at this, we'll continue next week taking a look at this, going through here, especially looking at the special guidance issue. But the next several weeks here, our focus will be to kind of go through the rest of this list and say, how does the Lord indicate to us His individual will for our lives through these other means?

Okay, let's pray. Lord, what a marvelous thing. You have laid out so much for us. And yet, at the same time, you've also given us this immense freedom, freedom within your will, in many cases, to make personal choices, choices of personal preference, and choices within clearly revealed principles and guidelines. Lord, we thank you for that. We just thank you for what you're doing in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.