Biblical Counseling - God's Individual Will
Vern Peterman · May 25, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492612225247

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

Okay. Alright, we've got the handout here, and we're going to cover the fourth in the series on God's will. And this is God's individual will, that is, the will for each believer. We've talked now through God's sovereign will. We've talked about God's moral will. And now we're going to talk about God's individual will for each believer. God's sovereign will, we've said, are those things that God has a will about and will most certainly be carried out or maintained. And so that's God's sovereign will. Our active will regarding God's sovereign will is to believe those things.

That's one of the reasons why they're having a class, even right now as we meet, on who you are in Christ. Because those things are things that God has a sovereign will about, and he has accomplished it and maintained it. So that's what's being learned in that elective. They're essentially spending nine months studying about God's sovereign will to the believer. Now, then we have God's moral will, and God's moral will is the same as God's sovereign will in what respects? How is God's moral will the same as God's sovereign will?

Still found in the scriptures. Pardon? Still found in the scriptures. Okay, that's good. What else? Pardon? Fixed. Okay, it's fixed in terms of God's moral will doesn't flip-flop and change and that's right today and wrong tomorrow. Okay, good. What else? That's it?

How is God's moral will the same as God's sovereign will? Or how is God's sovereign will the same as God's moral will? And Cheryl said it's fixed. Tom says it's revealed in God's Word. What else have we got? Always consistent with his character, which is why it's revealed and why it's fixed. It applies to everyone. Yeah, that's the other aspect. In other words, it is God's moral will and it's laid out for all believers. You know, it's interesting. That's all believers.

It doesn't matter if you've been a believer for a year or 50 years. It doesn't matter whether you're living here in the Northern Hemisphere or you're taking a trip to Antarctica. Yes? Does that in any way apply to unbelievers? Ah, okay. Does it in any way apply to unbelievers?

Very good question. Does anybody have a good answer? in the tiniest way, unless you get saved, and that's revealed in scripture, and that's part of God's will, but that's all that applies to those who are not yet saved. God is not willing that any should perish. If God has a will, He is not willing that any should perish, how come everybody isn't saved? Everybody doesn't believe. In the case of God's sovereign will, our active will has a place in believing what God has said. In the case of God's moral will, it is also a matter of believing what God has said as well.

But in truth, unless one has walked through that door of believing unto salvation, Believing the gospel. Unless someone has walked through that door, the little instances of God's moral will are not ultimately the prime issue, are they? If someone is not saved, it may have a difference in this life in terms of, let's say for example, lying, stealing, something of that sort. But whatever they do one way or the other isn't going to save them, is it?

Belief in the gospel is necessary for God's moral will to be of ultimate consequence. Because otherwise it really does them no value to try to pursue God's moral will. This is right, this is wrong, etc. Yes? I was going to say that for the unbeliever as well as the believer, not abiding by God's moral will has consequences in time. Yes, yes, and that's a good point. Not abiding by God's moral will has consequences in time for both the believer and the unbeliever. The ultimate end of that is different.

But, yeah, that's a good point. Now we shift to the third part, and you may think, well, Heavensburn, we're going in circles. Yes. We certainly are. We've got circles up here, we've got circles on the front page here of each week's handout. Ultimately, God's individual will for each believer, that's the inside circle. In other words, God's sovereign will is already fixed, set, and in place. The believer can find comfort, encouragement, and security as a matter of fact, can be overwhelmed with the blessings that are part of God's sovereign will. Inside of that, we have God's moral will which is revealed, which is based on God's character, and for which we have, as we pointed out, every basis to carry out God's moral will in our position, in our motivation, by grace and mercy, by empowerment and enablement.

And so those things are spelled out in Scripture, not for us to do them, but for Him to do them through us, is the better way to put it briefly. And finally, we come to God's individual will. Why is it we don't just kind of throw up our hands and say, well, it doesn't matter. Hey, look, I'm already saved, and as long as I'm not doing something wrong, what difference does it make? Why concern ourselves with God's individual will, with God's will for each person? Because He's prepared good works for us that we might want.

And if we're not focused on Him, We're not going to seek us. There are indeed things for each one of us to do in our individual circumstances and places that the Lord has put us, and it's not identical. We don't open up 1 Timothy and read, oh heavens, Paul sent Timothy to go to Ephesus to correct the false teachers. I guess I better get on a plane to Ephesus.

Quick! I mean, what are we doing here at Holly Hills? Quick! Call a travel agent! Get a ticket! Go to DIA! You've got to get to Ephesus, right? I see some smiles. A little bit of smirking. What's wrong with that picture? First of all, you're not even prepared. You're going to be out there among a whole bunch of potential terrorists. That's right. I mean, most of the people in Ephesus now are, unless they're visitors, Muslim, right? But yeah, things have changed radically, besides of which it's a, it's sort of an ancient ghost town of historical interest rather than a place where people live.

But why else? What else is wrong with the idea of just thinking, oh, it says right there in the Bible. Go to Ephesus. This is Paul spelling out God's will individually for Timothy. It is not directed to all believers. Right? That's good. Otherwise, there's several different places like that we could find passages. loaded up and head off to Philippi, even though there's nobody there either. In God's individual will, there actually is a will of God for each individual believer. And it is something where Scripture can reveal things, as we'll see on the next page here, Scripture can reveal things that will give us principles for determining God's individual will for our lives. But unlike God's sovereign will, which is the same for every believer and revealed, and God's moral will, which is the same for every believer and revealed, God's individual will is not the same for every believer. So that's why we're not all at Ephesus this morning. Yes? He sent Steve Dupuy to Russia. He sent us to Germany. Yeah. Different places. Different places.

God, in fact, after God's sovereign will, after God's moral will, has an individual will for each believer. Let's look at the last part of the page there, going in circles. As we look at it, I'd like us to take a look down at the bottom paragraph there. In the remaining realm of God's individual will for each believer, God's Word does not convey God's individual will for each believer in totality.

What we are given is a great number of principles, that is fundamental truths, to guide our decisions as believers. Between an understanding of these principles and learning to set aside false notions of God's guidance for each individual believer, there is both freedom and confidence in the Lord. There are biblical principles that we can look to apply. There's also value in learning to set aside what some of the false notions are. Between those biblical principles and the false notions being set aside, we have guidance. for God's individual will for each believer. So, truths. Learn the truths. Set aside the falsehoods. And some of those falsehoods are commonly taught and spoken about among believers.

So it's important we get there. Let's turn to the next page, page 23. We don't have the time to go through all the principles. But let me assure you that Scripture does contain them in a great many places. It's a matter of finding what applies to my circumstance. So what we've done is taken a sampling out of different areas to give people an idea of what are we talking about with these principles.

The first one we have there is every decision of every kind in the life of the believer is to be made from a place of walking by means of the Spirit. We say that otherwise known as beholding Christ or abiding in Christ. This principle comes from 2 Corinthians 3.18, Galatians 5.16-17, Philippians 2.12-13, etc. Our willing, whether we're conscious of it or not, and doing are clearly to be done from a position of spiritual understanding and fellowship. Why do we say that that's important in God's individual will for each believer.

Why do we put that right at the top of the list here? So that we're not trying to do it under our own power. Yes, that's right. Ultimately, God does not want us to try to do the wrong things by our own strength. Excuse me, the right things or the wrong things. Either way. Yes, by our own strength. God does not want us to just, what's the right choice to make? And then try to do it myself. Some people have the mindset What's that, Tom? The Lord's timing is what's really important in all this.

Okay. Alright. And we'll talk about that, won't we? Ultimately, some people have the idea that, okay, Lord, just tell me what to do and when I'm all done with this life, I'll meet you there and we'll just kind of see how we did. Is that what he has in mind? Okay.

No. Ultimately, He wants our day-to-day decisions to stem from our walk with the Lord. To stem from our walk with Him. That's what He has in mind. Fellowship with Him is the place from which all other actions and decisions are to be made. key principle regarding God's individual will is a lot of times I might be trying to figure out what's God's will about a situation that's not ever intended to be done from a place of we're going to pull it off of our own doing. Here's the next principle we have down there and again we're kind of taking a sampling Scripture provides a great deal of guidance in the realm of personal finances.

We had an elective. The audio portion is on the website and I think the written portion is as well. Yeah, we've got a footnote here. The elective had a great number of biblical principles laid out. for things like investing, and debt, and planning, and all sorts of things. And scripture has a great number of individual principles about finances. And so we spent, I think it was nine sessions, and there's something on the order of like 60-65 pages in that particular set of handouts that we had. Lots of principles on finance. Here's one that we pick from here. One of the many principles in the material on page 6.

The Bible talks about money a great deal, not because it is eternal or spiritual, but because our perspective on money springs directly from our place of spiritual dependence. You think about why would scripture put so much ink to talking about money? Why? Because money itself is not really the issue.

It's an area where people can get their dependence out of whack, isn't it? Begin relying on it or putting their hope in it. And so it's a key indicator of dependence. It is not because it is itself eternal or spiritual, but it is a place where people's mindsets and worldviews can get locked in on something that's here and now or it can be used as this is really God's asset and I have a stewardship with this. So totally different views.

So that's why the Bible talks about money. So here's a general principle and insight that is valuable for us to work with unless money has nothing to do with your life. Okay, I just thought I'd mention that. So here's a general principle. The reality is scripture has all sorts of things to say about investing, savings, debt, all sorts of things of that sort. Repeatedly addresses money issues. One way to put it is the Bible says more about money than heaven and hell combined. Lots of biblical principles.

Now, why do we say that those are biblical principles regarding God's individual will for your life rather than saying it's God's moral will? Why do we make that difference? We've said here that the principles regarding money are part of God's individual will for believers, but we don't spell them out as a part of God's moral will for believers. Why?

Yeah. And so we have to be wise stewards with the money that we as individuals have. Yeah. OK. Yeah. It's it's we are in different circumstances. We are called to different things. Yeah. Brandon. Kind of take that to the next step. It just seems like God's moral will is universal to all of us. Yeah. Individual will. for me to feel so much safe, not for you. Give a slightly more concrete example.

Here's what happened to this one fellow in his life. They bought themselves a Pilatus PC6, which is a fancy turbocrop with a lot of cargo room. And they enjoyed it for a while, and then they felt the Lord. I take it this is a plane, not a computer? It is a plane. It's not exercising. And then the Lord just let them donate it to Wycliffe. And then Wycliffe found that since it uses Jet A instead of Avgas, it's less expensive to fly. Not only good cargo and all this other stuff. So it was the Lord's will working in that.

Now, not everybody owns a Pilatus DC-6. So there you go. That's an individual thing. Yeah, and I think when you look at money issues, excuse me, when you look at money issues, A lot of us, we will find ourselves in different sets of circumstances. And probably not too many of us have the chance to go and donate a jet to some mission agency. It's a matter of, there are lots of different kinds of circumstances. And some of us just will never find ourselves in some of those circumstances.

So that's one. Yeah, Jeremy? Well, God's moral will is based on his character. When we're talking about right and wrong, from a biblical perspective, it's either this is consistent with God's character or it's inconsistent. When you're talking about finances, it doesn't have any direct connection with God's character. It's more about our submitting to the control. this thing to master us, but being mastered by God and allowing Him to use these things in our life. And it has nothing to do with His character directly. Okay, yeah. It is not directly an issue of His character. It's the difference between right and wrong and what's a wise decision.

People will sometimes torture over things that are not really big issues. Sleepless nights. Should I buy the blue Chevy or the yellow one? I want to do God's will. So we can torture ourselves over the wrong things or needless things. At the same time, when it comes to money, someone may make an unwise financial decision, but that is not the same as, heaven sakes, you just murdered the pastor. Well, I was trying to make the point clear. So there is a distinction between what is morally right or wrong and what is wise.

Okay, let's take a look. Here's another one. Here's a principle, seeking wise counsel, right in the middle of the page there, seeking wise counsel and perhaps even multiple counselors for significant and pivotal decisions is the better part of wisdom, especially at times and in areas where an individual believer does not have that wisdom and perspective alone. Proverbs 11, 14, where there's no guidance that people follow but in abundance of counselors there's victory, literally deliverance.

So is this an issue of right or wrong? No. Does it make a difference? Yeah. And what's the difference? It's not a moral issue. It's not like, well, that was just totally contrary to God's will. But it becomes a question of what's wise in a circumstance. What's the advantage of getting counsel in an area where maybe we don't have the full picture, the set of expertise? What's the advantage there?

Yeah, might end up making a better decision, a wiser decision. Okay. What else? Ah, okay. Some of the counseling situations will come from someone who has some insights maybe into the person. And that may be of value. Good. What else, Tom? This is really interesting.

It's almost like Twilight Zone, but this happened to me yesterday. I was getting my windshield replaced, and this gentleman who owns the place was having a hard time finding this one part in this new catalog. And I said, could you just hand that to me? I didn't know anything about windshields, but he described the part, and I just kind of looked and looked, and about five minutes later, I said, there it is. Okay, so I guess his mind was cluttered and this was one of those out-of-the-blue experiences where I had a clear mind because I had plenty of sleep. Anyway, the Lord used that. He had a clear mind but not so clear a windshield. Okay, good.

Can you think of other instances where having some outside counsel is going to help or reasons? Yeah, Jeremy? Well, one part of it is The emphasis of this class is how God expects us to be. within the body and rely on one another. We're not in this world on our own. We have each other to rely on. I think part of that is realizing that it's not just about us. It's about each other and relying on each other to get us through these difficult decisions.

Excellent point. Our culture has had a tendency over time to underscore individuality and there certainly is a place for that. But in the body of Christ, there is an intent that God uses in one another's lives. That's the way God designed things. And so a part of it is making use of giftedness in the body. So that can be a key aspect of what's going on, and it fits in with this biblical counseling topic that we're talking about here. that believers in the body may very well have pivotal and important insights in their particular circumstance. Could be real helpful.

Good. Anything else? Any other thoughts, insights? Yes, April. No, other people sometimes go through what you're going through. Bingo. Okay. Somebody else's experience. I've been through that and let me tell you how that worked out for me. which sometimes can be a, whew, I'm glad I talked to you, right?

Yeah, thanks, because that's a real valuable thing. And it also fits in with Jeremy's comment about the church body working together. It is a way in which we in the church body can encourage, exhort, support one another, and it's another way that that works out. Yeah, we've been through something. And it's helpful to get that insight.

Beth? In marriage, that's why it's so important to have biblical counseling with marriage. And then, so much of the time, they don't listen to you. And you have to watch this. Knowing that they ignored this. But sometimes people just ignore that good counseling and go along their own.

Yeah. And your point's well taken. Nancy and I have been doing marriage counseling and premarital counseling for some time now. And we see the full range. We've seen couples where we just get through saying something and not a second goes by and they're all of a sudden totally crossing off what we just said. I mean, right in front of us, just kind of, World War III breaks out, you know? And so you'll have that happen. On the other hand, we've had experiences where, you know, we can tell before we're done with that particular meeting, wow, this person is really getting it.

Isn't it neat? And so we've seen the whole range. And that's right. There is a difference in responsiveness. But nonetheless, within the church body, there is the ability to bring both, here's biblical insight, as well as here's been our experience about how this works out. Yeah, both of those. Good. Thank you. Any other thoughts on this?

It's terrible to reach the age and experience of knowing the answers and no one Yeah, let me give you the benefit of my experience. No. You've probably even seen this on a bumper sticker or someplace else. It says, Jesus is the answer. And then underneath in some handwriting is, what was the question? Yeah.

Yeah, there's definitely a varying response. Some people soaking it up, and you can see them learning and responding. Other people, it's like, why did I just bother, you know? And variations in between. It's also interesting sometimes, too, to tell somebody something, they don't believe it, and they come back later and say, you were right.

This is also one of those things where, in an abundance of counselors, that's exactly what we're talking about here. Biblical counseling, okay? It is why we, it's one of the reasons why we can talk about our counsel of one another. That what scripture has in mind is that it's not a, here's our designated counselor for this church body, but rather there is a place for all of us as believers to feed back to one another biblical wisdom, encouragement, understandings, insights, all those things and to support one another. the importance of knowing the word and that we're saying the same thing.

We have the same mindset as we approach things because I know we have a friend whose sister was going through a divorce and she was going to the Christian bookstores to find materials, well actually she was considering whether she should get a divorce or not.

You can find a book that will say anything you want. Back in the 1800s there was a fellow that said give me five dollars and five minutes and I can make the Bible say anything you want. I think with inflation that price tag's gone up, but generally the principle is there.

Let's look at the next principle down there. Believers should not expect that God will clearly and miraculously reveal his specific will for individual fork-in-the-road kinds of decisions as the normal means of revealing his will. What are we saying there? What's that? Growing in grace. A great many Christians will have an expectation that God's going to have some big sign drop out of the sky and tell me, do this. Turn right at the next light. And they want God to provide kind of miraculous, clear guidance at every step of the way, and that's what they're expecting.

This one instance spelled out in scripture was God was not in the land. He wasn't in the earthquake, but he was in a still small voice. Yeah, we'll be taking a look here at a particular instance in scripture out of Acts, but let's think, why doesn't God work that way all the time? Why doesn't God have, you know, you turn on the PC and while it's booting up, this big thing flashes and it says, God wants you to do this by Monday. Yeah? Because God's not trying to make little rule followers and robots? Yeah. Little rule followers and robots.

And the other thing is, if life were consistently like that, would you be caused to depend on yourself or the Lord? Ultimately, the tendency would be, would it not, for us to depend upon ourselves and just say, hey, I've got the external, you know, go right, go left, stop, go, slow down. I've got the external direction from the Lord and I'll just do it myself. Instead, what he's looking upon, our first principle, dependence upon him, reliance upon him, resting in him, first, and not looking to all these external miraculous signs left and right, yeah?

Well I think that often when people are looking for their signs, that they're looking for God's will, they love Him, they want to look for His will, but instead of, when they're looking for the signs, they're not looking at the Lord. They're not really depending on Him. they're hoping that he'll ride it in the clouds. Are you afraid of that obvious? Yes.

It is a matter of our continuing to look to the Lord, continuing to behold Him, and not putting our eyes on what's the external superficial sign that will let me know that I need to take a left turn at the third light ahead. The Lord wants us to look to Him personally, depend upon Him, rely upon Him, and rest in Him moment by moment by moment. And a life of clear external symbols sidesteps the relationship that's of ultimate importance. occur because the person trusted their own mentality and not their instruments. Instruments are not 100% accurate, but the thing is that we have a tendency to trust upon ourselves Yeah. Did you catch that? He's using the analogy from general aviation where he says that the accident rate is exceedingly high for those who are trusting their own intuition or subjective sense of things rather than their instruments. Yeah.

One of the things we say in the last part of this principle, because I only read the first line there, But in the instances where God does have such a specific individual will for a believer, the one who is walking in fellowship with God will know and recognize that revelation on those rare instances where God reveals it.

You see, what the Lord is wanting us to do is to look to Him. Remember, we talked about these principles, including getting counsel from other believers and getting some wise insights. The Lord wants us to walk in fellowship with Him and look at the resources that He's given us to make these kinds of decisions. That is the norm for the way God works. In those rare instances where God has a specific will, do this, not that, And he does reveal it in some clear and perhaps even miraculous way. It's the believer who is walking in fellowship with the Lord that's going to see it.

And that's where we go back to the first principle. If God's going to make a clear sign, it's going to be clear to the person who's walking in fellowship with the Lord. And here's the way we come up with that last point, the last paragraph on that page.

Throughout the entire Book of Acts, which covered three decades of time, so if we were to compare that to now, this would be like from the Book of Acts covers a period of time like 1978 until now. So about that length of time for the Book of Acts. During that period of time, so about three decades of time, There are only a few instances where God specifically said, do this, not that.

And here's a time that's miraculous. Here's a time where the Lord's doing miracles and there's prophecies and all kinds of things. The number of times during the book of Acts, where we're talking about the apostles and their period of miracles, the number of times in Acts where the Lord says, do this, not that, is relatively rare. It is not the norm for the Lord to do that.

One instance we do see is in Acts 16, Paul and his companions were directed by the Holy Spirit to evangelize and establish the first church, that's the one in Philippi, and subsequent churches on the European continent. That was one that was miraculous, and that is very close to the last one. the apostles, the special sent ones. Yeah, that's right. Specific to the apostles in most of those instances. And these are the guys that are typified by miraculous events. And here it is rare. So I think that's one of the things that many Christians expect as the norm was not even the norm for the apostles. during a period of time of miracle. Yeah, Jeremy?

Well, we keep going back to the issue of trusting in God. When we're looking for signs, it's almost as though we're saying that simply by walking in the Spirit and allowing Him to guide us in our everyday life is not quite enough. We have to look for something else.

And it's almost as though we don't believe the Spirit's able to guide us into wise decisions. If we're walking in the Spirit, we're going to make wise decisions, and whatever consequences come of that, it may be a bad consequence from our perspective, but if we're walking in the Spirit, that's what God has for us. The chances of us making wise decisions when we're on our own, it's more accidental than just the Spirit. I mean, with everything, it's like, you know, even between law and grace, we think, well, how can we know what to do without somebody telling us? How can we just walk in the Spirit and know what to do? And what we're really doing is we're not trusting God. We're not believing that He's able to guide us simply because we're abiding in Him.

Think of what are some of the key points we've brought out, and your point's well taken. What are some of the key points we've brought out that have to do with the kinds of guidance that believers need? Some of those pieces of guidance are, what are the principles in God's Word? Another piece of guidance may be wisdom that other believers have to share with us. Especially if you get into an area where you don't feel like you have the full perspective or the full set of information, or as April brought out, maybe you don't have the experience there, but another believer has.

They've been down that road. But then the other point is we have, in addition to those things, and those things come by the Holy Spirit, we also have the Holy Spirit in dwelling. Yes, Dawn. Well I think in line with what Jeremy is saying too, there's a tendency where we think that God's will for us is something future down the road, when it's actually in the going, moment by moment, right? Yeah.

It's in the going. It's right now. And that's because the walk is right now. The walk is right now. It's in the going. It's a matter of moment by moment, day by day. I can't trust the Lord for tomorrow in the sense of I need to walk with Him now. I can't say, well, I'll walk with him tomorrow and I'll wait till then. No, it's every moment. It's each moment that counts.

Let's take a look at the last page there. These are principles to set aside, some concepts to set aside. These are commonly taught among various Christian sects. And part of learning to know what God's individual will is for each of us is setting aside what's false. And we've got three false principles laid out. I'm sure if you looked hard you could find more, but here's some. The first one is God's will is a golden road that must be found and followed and the right forks in the road chosen or the believer will be hard pressed to get back on the golden road later on.

Oh no, I missed it. It's like you missed the turn off and you've got to go 25 miles to the next one. Why is that not the case in the Christian life? Why is it that I don't get derailed for years and decades of time because I miss God's will at some particular point? Why is that true?

It's just what Donna said. It's in the going. It's moment by moment. If at any point I find that I've made some decision, I look back and say that wasn't the right thing to do, what's my immediate response as a believer? Where do I go? Back to Him. Yeah. Since it's in the going, since it's in the beholding, since it's in dependence upon Him, remember the first principle we saw on the prior page?

At any moment, I look at something and I say, boy, that sure wasn't the right thing to do. I can go to the Lord like that. I can go to Him instantly and say, Lord, I looked back on this and that was a bad decision. But I can walk in fellowship with the Lord right now. And I can come to Him.

Gail? We used to call that taking God's second best. plans A, B, and C, and if I don't choose A, I end up on B or C. And yeah, God's the leader, it's God's work, but you really should have done the other. Yeah, and ultimately, you know what God's A plan is? Walking fellowship with Him.

Anytime you look at it and you say, boy, I took the wrong fork in the road, it is an instant. I can turn the eyes of my heart upon the Lord. I'm right back into the place because it is moment by moment. We have this position in Christ that hasn't changed. I made the wrong decision, but who I am in Christ hasn't changed one iota. I made the wrong decision, but my opportunity for fellowship with the Lord and to go back to Him and to rely on all the things that He has done and all the resources He's made available is right then and there.

So, the idea of following the yellow brick road, or the golden road, the golden path, is also something that can easily get us focused on the path instead of the Lord. Oh, where's the path? Where's the path? Instead of, there's the Lord. And that doesn't depend on the path.

Okay, that's one principle. The next false principle, if I have a peace about a decision, that is God's surest and final sign that I'm in God's will. Is there something about that that sounds right? Okay, I'm hearing yes, I'm seeing some nods. Why does that sound right? The word of righteousness is peace. Good. Anything else?

If you're at rest in the Lord, that's definitely a peaceful. If you're at rest in the Lord, there's a peace about it. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. The fruit of the Spirit, which is essentially the fruit of walking in fellowship with the Lord, walking by means of the Spirit. It may be a false peace. Here's the thing. There is a sense of rightness about it.

The difficulty comes if we look at it as the sole and single test of, am I in God's will? While there is a range of validity to it, do I look at that and disregard all the principles that are in Scripture? No. There may be some investigation into something or digging in the facts in order to make a good decision. If I don't investigate the facts, having a peace may just be an expression of my ignorance. I have peace because I don't know the facts. And not because this is God's peace.

If I were to say, Nancy, I'm going to go to Stanford University Medical School and learn how to do heart transplants. Well, hey, that costs some money. Where's that coming from? See, there's a certain digging into it to look at it that's required first.

So, a feeling of peace, it has a place of validity, but it is not a substitute for, did I get wise counsel? It's not a substitute for, did I check out the facts? It's not a substitute for, what principles are there in God's Word that apply to my situation? So, it has a validity, but it needs to be looked at as, it doesn't set aside the need to kind of do your homework.

The need to look to the body for advice, if that's what it's called for. False principle number three here. If I want to know God's will, I must be very sensitive to the Lord and look for subtle and mystical signs regarding God's will. Like the traffic light turning red just when I ask the Lord if I should make a certain decision. Or happen to open the Bible to a certain verse just when I'm in need of specific guidance.

What's wrong with that? That approach to things? Nothing, I like it. And let me guess, you have a piece about it too. And it lights up the golden path. But what it really amounts to is, remember we talked earlier about I want God to provide this big bold sign and give me steerage at every point. What it does is it ends up making subtle signs that may have nothing to do with what God intends, make those into the big bold sign.

It's still looking for all the signs and and indicators and wanting to look to externals instead of really walking in fellowship with the Lord and looking at the resources He's got. Christianity is about knowing the Lord. It's about having a relationship and fellowship with Him. And if we're looking for all these externals, We're not looking at our relationship.

We're looking for stuff. Yeah. Five grains of salt fell on the left side of the salt shaker and two on the right. That's more on the left than the right. I think I'll turn left at the next sign. Yeah. Yeah. Wayne? I think sometimes we don't know that it's got a willful actor. I'm thinking of Hal one time getting on the wrong plane and he got witnessing to somebody on that plane. You know, there wasn't something. A certain circumstance that we look at and say, oh, that's not good.

That may be exactly what God has in mind. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Sometimes we'll look too carefully for fine and subtle signs when in fact the Lord's opening up the opportunities and preparing every good work right in front of us. And we might look at it at first blush and say, oh, this wasn't what I had in mind. And yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. And I can think of different trials, too. Yeah. Yeah, trials come our way. Does that mean, oh, I had a trial, it must not be God's will. There are no coincidences with God, with the Lord. We're put somewhere for a reason.

And this is one thing that's neat, is the Lord has a purpose in everything. There is nothing that's going to go on in my life that He is not going to use in some way to conform me to the image of His Son. And this is a wonderful thing. And the thing is that if I miss the golden road, if I miss the golden path, if I somehow miss God's will as indicated in all these things, I have the confidence as a believer that the Lord is still going to use whatever happens to conform me to the image of the Son. will, and by the way that's part of the sovereign will, will not be thwarted by my choice. Will not be thwarted. Gail? And he is glorified anyway, because he doesn't. Isn't that something? He is glorified, nonetheless.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at these passages. How marvelous, it's amazing how it keeps coming back to walking in fellowship with you. It keeps coming back to you are glorified. It keeps coming back to your faithfulness and who you are and who you've made us to be. Now, Lord, we rejoice this morning as we look at these things and are able to trust you. And through the course of life, the critical things, the things that really matter, you have made quite clear. How marvelous, how wondrous. We praise you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.