Understanding God’s Will

Hey everyone. Welcome to Encounter. After a long break, I think. When’s the last time? Maybe a month ago or longer. It’s good to see everyone again on this cloudy Saturday and pretty wet couple weeks that we have had. It’s always a privilege to be joining you and especially speaking. As always, it’s very difficult to put something together, but by God’s grace, we have all had the opportunity, most of us, by the opportunity over the months to sit down and grapple with God’s Word and be able to share at Encounter. Pastor Sanil, as most of you know, is at Hebron Houston sharing there and he’ll be driving back this evening, I believe, so please keep him in prayer, especially with rain and all sorts of things on the road. Just keep him in your prayer.

So for maybe the five or six of you that were on a Zoom call in 2020, you may have heard parts of this message or talk, maybe a skeleton version of this talk, but assuming you’ve slept and many, many times since then and forgotten everything that happened in 2020, you probably have no recollection of this of this discussion or talk that we had on a Zoom call one random evening. So you will be able to hear this one more time for those of you who weren’t, who were there, and for those of you who weren’t there, we’re gonna hopefully try to tackle a really brutally practical topic this evening. It will not be expositional. I love expositional messages, but we’re gonna go topical this evening and just try to kind of go through together several passages, but a very familiar topic to all of us, whether young or old, and that is understanding God’s will.

Has anyone here made a decision before? Anyone have to make a decision ever in their life? Yes? Okay, then this applies to you. So I think this is universally applicable from the youngest, I don’t know, Joanne, maybe? I don’t know. And to the oldest among us, I’m not gonna point you all out, but this is very, very much a principle and something that we all need to be, maybe not masters at, but very good at doing because we have, there’s a lot at stake in the decisions that we make from day to day, year to year, and from decade to decade.

So let me first pose a scenario to you. You are having a headache or you’re having a tummy, sorry I use tummy because we have kids, stomach problems at home, and you are contemplating taking a couple Tylenol for it, for the pain that you might be having. And for the average person, more than the average person, for the vast majority of people, it’s a very simple decision. I have a pain, I have this medicine that could help with the pain, therefore I take the medicine. And 99.9% of us will probably not hesitate to take a couple Tylenol to help alleviate that pain, right? It’s a simple thing, you just take two pills, put in your mouth, swallow with some water, and bam, you’re done. Pain, hopefully, will go away within a few hours.

But if you are that 0.1% the weirdos out there who are thinking about whether taking the Tylenol is really worth it, if the risk or the benefit of taking the two Tylenol for your headache really outweighs the risk, and so your mind might wander into maybe the chemical makeup of Tylenol. You might think about all of the reactions and interactions that take place when you take the Tylenol. What if you get some kind of toxicity from the Tylenol? Maybe you’re thinking about the chemical structure of the carbohydrates, or the carbon and the hydrogen atoms that go together that make the Tylenol molecules that you’re about to ingest. What if you’re deeply concerned, maybe you have more of a legal mind, and you’re deeply concerned about the lawsuits that have been filed against the makers of Tylenol because it can cause autism, and ADHD, and cerebral palsy, and other things, and liver damage, of course. What if you’re really, really concerned about these things? Then taking a Tylenol may not be as simple as just popping in your mouth, but you could be severely paralyzed at the thought that any of these things could happen, that it could build up some kind of toxic reaction in your body, and you can die from Tylenol, right? That’s the degree to which some of us are paralyzed by the decisions that we make. Some things, sometimes, are seemingly as simple as just taking a Tylenol. Not really. I mean, most of us would take it without batting an eye, but not all the decisions that we make are as simple, right?

And some of the buzzwords that some of you may have even used today are very familiar to us when it comes to making a decision. Are we at the center of God’s will when it comes to making a certain decision? Are we following our hearts? Maybe not something that we routinely use, but this one I use all the time. Do we have peace about the decision that we’re about to make? Do we have peace? Are the doors open to us? Has God opened that door for us? Has God closed the door for us, and therefore we shouldn’t enter it? And the perennial favorite is Gideon’s—oh, something did go wrong, sorry—Gideon’s Fleece. Has God somehow, providentially or supernaturally, allowed some kind of sign to take place to give you confirmation for the decision that you’re about to make? And so, when you consider the decisions that you have to make in life, whether that’s finding who you’re supposed to marry or deciding on a major in school or whether you’re supposed to, you know, wear a blue shoe or wear jeans or pants for tonight’s service, there’s always a decision that you have to make probably every few minutes of your entire life, and these are the questions that are often racing through our head, whether it’s truly at the center of God’s will. Even last week, I think, we sang the song, Jesus at the Center of it All, right? Jesus at the center of your life, at the center of your church. Are you at the center of God’s will? It seems like a really important thing to have to address when you’re making a decision. But again, the analysis, when it’s so intense, can almost lead us to a paralysis, right? If we’re not at the center of God’s will, are we doing the right thing? Is the car that I buy, is that necessarily a decision that has to be at the center of God’s will, or is it just a car? The difference between a Toyota or a Honda or a bike and a scooter, like, does it really matter that I’m at the center of God’s will if I decide to purchase something like a car or a bike, or a certain house, or where you buy the house? All of these things have very important ramifications in our lives, but does everything necessarily have to center in God’s will, or are there decisions that maybe are more in the periphery? If God is the be-all, end-all, and in Him we live and breathe and have our being, doesn’t even the smallest thing, even the hair that falls off our head, isn’t that even concerning to God? So in this craziness that I’ve painted before you, being a little dramatic, let’s try to kind of unravel everything. But when we’re talking about being at the center of God’s will, just to kind of paint the seriousness of it, we can consider a few people, right? In this next slide, Abel, John the Baptist, Enoch, and Noah. Consider those four men. Abel and John the Baptist were at the center of God’s will, and they died. Enoch was at the center of God’s will, and he did not die. In fact, he walked with God most of his life, and he was just taken away in blissful rapture. Noah was at the center of God’s will, and everyone but him died. Everyone but him and his family died by being at the center of God’s will. So being at the center of God’s will may actually have a lot of implications to our life, whether that’s prosperity and peace and, you know, a good, happy life. It could mean that everyone around you dies as a result. It could mean that you might die yourself being at the center of God’s will, or while in the center of God’s will. Does it matter? Yeah. Yeah.

So bad decisions can be made when you’re not in the center of God’s will sometimes. Really bad decisions can be made. It can lead to not being in the center of God’s will and not making decisions in a prayerful way or in a biblical way can lead to indecisiveness, for you to just kind of not go here, not go there, just kind of sit in the middle and not really make any decisions, which could lead to wasted opportunities. If something goes awry, you might end up blaming God for those decisions, for those bad decisions. And then you might doubt God for his lack of answers or wrong answers. And then ultimately that might lead to a wrong teaching of God and his character. Sorry, let me just turn on my thing here. So what we’re going to do this evening is kind of go through a lot of really bad examples of what it’s like to not be in the center of God’s will and make really bad decisions. Because people, as we will see, practice very poor discernment. And the Old Testament and New Testament is littered with examples of people who did not follow God’s will for their life, who had very poor discernment and had very catastrophic results, catastrophic things happen as a result of those decisions.

So let’s talk about the poster child of bad decisions and poor discernment. That’s King Saul. So if we could turn to 1 Samuel 8 and just plant there for a second. We’re going to go through a few verses in a second. But all around, everything that happened in the life of Saul started before he became king, happened during the duration of his king, and had ramifications for generations as a result of his kingship. So we can just kind of plant there for a second. But again, this is familiar to most of you. He is the epitome of poor discernment, of very, very poor decision-making. If you were to boil down his life, the beginning, even before he became king, that period in his life was marked by unfaithfulness by the people. And we’ll get into that in a second. He didn’t follow God’s command to kill the Amalekites. Remember, he was told to kill the entire people. That’s another sermon altogether. But he was asked to kill the entire people, man, woman, and child, but he didn’t. He didn’t recognize David’s anointing. He killed God’s priests. He consulted with a witch to try to get God’s will out of a witch of all people, and then he offered sacrifices in the place of a priest. And one thing led to another, led to another, and just eventually snowballed into an avalanche that he couldn’t control anymore. And he ended his life essentially by killing himself. This is, again, the poster child of what it means to make poor decision after poor decision after poor decision.

Another king. We’re just going to stick with the kings. King Rehoboam. Now, if you dust off your recollection of the Old Testament kings, he was a king that followed King Solomon, right? There was David, actually Saul, David, Solomon, and then King Rehoboam. And Rehoboam had taken over the mantle of Solomon after an illustrious decades of peace and prosperity. He takes the mantle of kingship from Solomon after he dies. And the people of the time were like, hey, Rehoboam, your dad’s dead, the temple is built, everything is good. Can we not pay as much taxes? We’re really being burdened by the amount of taxes that you’re making us pay. Can you just kind of settle down on the taxes a little and we can all live in peace? He had the choice to make peace with his people and reduce taxes, reduce the burden on his people, but he rejected it. He rejected their offer. He rejected their pleas, rather. He rejected the sound wisdom that was offered by the elderly, the elder people that were around him, and he decided to listen to basically an idiot, and that led to the division, an irreconcilable division in Israel. It split into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. So really, really poor decision-making, very poor discernment. His youthful, willful ignorance, his desire to spurn wise counsel led to the split of the kingdom.

Next one, going really deep into the Old Testament, King Zedekiah. If you recall, he’s the last king of Judah before the Babylonians come in and take everyone away, and that’s the end of the, that begins the exilic period for the kingdom of Judah. So Zedekiah was a really crummy guy, but God gave him a chance to redeem himself. After seeing his dad, a couple brothers really, really, really mess things up, he is made king by Nebuchadnezzar, and Jeremiah comes and says, Zedekiah, look, you have one little shred of hope. If you just give up to the Babylonians, he’s gonna allow you all to live, he’s gonna let you live in peace, and you can at least hold your head up high knowing that everyone’s gonna be at least safe and living in relative peace if you just give up to the Babylonians.

Then this prophet comes in named Hananiah. Let me preface this by saying, one day Jeremiah comes in with this yoke on his shoulder as a sign or a symbol. He comes to the king’s court as a sign or a symbol of what would happen if Zedekiah didn’t follow God’s command or the counsel that God had given to give up to the Babylonians. So he comes in with this yoke, and he’s bound by this yoke, and he says, King Zedekiah, if you don’t, if you don’t follow this command, then you’re gonna be in this, in this yoke within two years. You’re gonna be just like what it’s like to be in this yoke within two years.

Prophet Hananiah comes in and says, what he does is he breaks the yoke off of Jeremiah’s shoulder and says, Zedekiah, don’t listen to this, this false prophet. Listen to me. Not only is this broke, this yoke gonna be broken off of your shoulder, you’re gonna be able to be, you’re gonna be able to conquer the Babylonians, you’re gonna live in peace. Don’t give up to the Babylonians under any circumstance. Just listen to me. God told me what is right. You’re gonna live in peace and prosperity if you don’t give up to the Babylonians.

So you have Prophet A. Jeremiah, Prophet B. Hananiah, and Zedekiah makes his decision. He decides to not give up to the Babylonians. He listens to Hananiah. Jeremiah prophesies, Hananiah, you’re gonna die within one year for the false prophet that you are. You’re gonna be, you’re gonna face God’s judgment. Seven months later, Hananiah dies. I’m just kind of giving you some context here. Seven months later, Hananiah dies. Zedekiah had a chance to live in peace for the rest of his life in exile. Instead, Zedekiah runs off to Egypt, the Babylonians capture him. His sons are killed in front of him. Zedekiah’s eyes are gouged out. Sorry, we’re getting really graphic here. And then he lives in exile for the rest of his life. He doesn’t die. He lives, but he dies having his sons cut off, his entire progeny cut off, and he ignores, willfully disobeys, goes against the counsel of God’s anointed one, Jeremiah, and he faces a consequence.

King after king after king who denies godly wisdom, denies God’s very words through his prophets. Whether it’s, you know, youthful, willful ignorance, whether it’s just straight-up declining or denying God’s Word, whether it’s just going against, in the case of prophets, in the case of Saul, going against Samuel again and again and again. Literally, Samuel is like in his ear saying, hey, Saul, do not do this. And he still goes against the very Word of God from the prophet of God. This, brothers and sisters, is poor discernment, lack of wisdom, leading to very catastrophic consequences.

Now, two slides ago, I bolded something, and that’s why we’re sitting in 1 Samuel 8. What I bolded was, the beginning was marked by unfaithfulness by the people. So, remember, we’re back to Saul. Judges are ruling the land, right? We’re going from judge to judge to judge. Gideon is a judge. Deborah is a judge. Samuel is the last judge of Israel, right? Let’s go to chapter 8. The way that chapter 8 begins is, the people say, hey, Samuel, your sons are really crooked. They take bribes. They’re not so great guys. We don’t want them to be the judge. We want a king instead, right? And when they have said, give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel. So he prayed to the Lord, and Lord told him, listen to all the people. Listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you that they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king, as they have done from the day I brought them up from Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods. So they are doing to you.

Let me read that one more time. Listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you that they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. Israel, the nation of Israel, had a king the entire time. The king of kings was their king. This king of kings led them out of Egypt, split the seas, destroyed every enemy around them, gave them food in the desert, water in the desert, was a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of cloud by day, gave them everything they could possibly need, more than any earthly king could possibly have given them, and yet the people rejected their king.

What is the natural consequence of the people rejecting their king? So God tells Samuel, now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do. This is a prophecy that is being given to Samuel, or Samuel is giving to the people. Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king. He said, this is what the king who will reign over you will do. He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands, commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground to weep and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your men servants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and the donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks.

Moving on, when that day comes you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen and the Lord will not answer you in that day. And this is what the people said. No, they said to their king, to the king of kings, we want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations with the king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles. How tragic. The king of kings is their king. This kingdom of priests, his presence is in the camp. They see it. They see manifestations of that. They see prophet after prophet after prophet, judge after judge after judge giving them the word of the Lord. He redeems them. He saves them out of their misery again and again and again. But the people want to be like everyone else. They want a king of their own. They reject the king.

The natural consequence of that being they have natural kings and by and far, I can’t give you a percentage, but I imagine it’s 80, 85, 90, 95 percent of the kings end up being totally, totally awful people. They drive the people to the ground. They end up in exile and totally ends up in, for lack of a better term, ends up in total dumpster fire. Israel does because of this request. Samuel said don’t do it. You have a king. Don’t do it. Poor discernment. Poor decision-making. Why? Ultimately, because the king is rejected. And that naturally, you know, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that that applies very much to every one of our lives. When your king is rejected, when you reject your king, you have to face the consequences. What leads is poor discernment, poor decision-making. You are not at the center of God’s will in your life. Whether it’s BC 4000 or whether it’s 2024, the same applies even now.

So moving on. I think my iPad died here, so I’m gonna have to rely on this. All right, so moving on, we’re gonna change gears a little bit from Old Testament examples of dumpster fires to us. Us now in the present day and how we should approach decision-making. Now this will seem very elementary. This is actually very easy for any of us to understand, but this will kind of help us understand the methods and kind of the strategy, if you will, that we use when we make a decision. And this applies to any decision that we make. And I don’t want to belittle decision-making. I realize some of us have to make very difficult decisions in life, and some of us are having to make very difficult decisions, so I don’t want to just make a diagram of your whole life and say that just follow this. It’s not that simple, but I believe that this kind of scheme does encompass a lot of the decision-making globally that we have to make.

So everything under the purview of God is in the circle called the sovereign will of God. Everything. Whether you go home and eat cereal, whether you eat Taco Bell, whether you drive home in your car, whether you walk home, whether you major in biology, whether you major in welding, whatever it is that you do in life, whoever it is that you choose to marry, wherever you end up finding your plot to be buried in, all of that falls under the sovereign will of God. Everything falls under that.

Some biblical evidence for that. Ephesians 1:11. In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who has worked out everything in conformity to the purpose of his will. Predestined. Romans 9:19. One of you say to me then, sorry, one of you will say to me then why does God still blame us? Who resists his will? Daniel 4:35. These are just a few verses describing his sovereignty. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, what have you done? God’s sovereignty is limitless. It is all encompassing. It is universal. There’s nothing outside of even what the enemy deems for evil, God brings for good. Every single thing is in that circle of God’s sovereign will.

Now when we’re making a decision, everything falls under that circle, but not necessarily everything falls under the center of his will, right? You can cheat on the test and that will fall under his sovereignty, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s God’s will for you, right? So the next slide will show as we narrow down our ability or our reasoning behind making a decision, does our decision fall under the moral will of God? Again, simple things. There’s nothing groundbreaking here. Does our decision fall under the moral will of God? Is that God’s will for you as far as his law and his commands are concerned?

For this is the will of God, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7. For this is the will of God. It’s saying it to you as plainly as it can by saying this is the will of God. Your sanctification. How about that? Of all the things that God can will for you, your sanctification is what is paramount, at least in the New Testament. That you abstain from sexual immorality. That each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. That no one transgresses and wrong his brother in this manner. Because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we have told you beforehand and solemnly warned you, for God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness. Your holiness and your sanctification is God’s will. You don’t have to look much further. If your decision falls into this purview of is it holy? Is it in line with your sanctification? Or is it not? Then the answer is fairly simple. Again, I don’t want to minimize your decision or the decision you have to make or the decisions you have to make. But does it fall under God’s plan for sanctification of holiness in your life? If it doesn’t, then there you go. That’s the answer. That’s not God’s will for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. Be joyful always. Pray continuously. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Giving thanks. Ephesians 5:16-18. Making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will be. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Indeed, be filled with the Spirit. The Lord’s will is that you not be foolish, that you understand what God’s will is in these areas of life. And then lastly, 1 Peter 2:13-15. Submit yourselves to the Lord’s sake, to everything, to every authority instituted among men, whether to the king as a supreme authority or to the governors who are sent by God to punish those who do wrong and to command and to commend those who do right. For in God’s will, for it is God’s will, that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.

So these are, again, these are just kind of picked from throughout the span of the New Testament, but this is a general gist of what God’s will is for you as far as the moral will is concerned. Does it fall in the circle of God’s moral command, God’s law, as far as your decision is concerned? And if it falls outside of it, then it’s a pretty simple choice. Does God will for you to marry someone who doesn’t follow after him? Does God will for you to cheat on your taxes, to have dishonest gain? No, because all of those things fall under the law of God, under the Ten Commandments. But not everything is necessarily an ethical or moral question, right?

So moving on, the next sphere that we’re talking about is wisdom, God’s precepts. James 1:5. If any of you lacked wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. And you can read those verses on your own, Proverbs 1:1-6, the whole book, right, is just wisdom for daily life. Same with Proverbs 8, for whoever finds finds me, finds life, and receives favor from the Lord. But whoever fails to find me, I really should have made these words bigger when I was making this, fails to find me himself. Yeah, you can read it yourself. So basically, all of God’s precepts, not necessarily God’s law, but God’s precepts, the ways in which that you’re supposed to walk. This path, not this path. The fact that you’re supposed to pray continuously, seek first his kingdom. Those aren’t necessarily the laws of Scripture, the commands of Scripture, but that’s wisdom. That’s God’s holy wisdom in which you’re supposed to walk, walk in.

So at this point, you probably get kind of the gist that I’m getting at, is follow the Bible, right? That’s not rocket science, it’s not groundbreaking news here that I’m revealing to you that you’ve never heard before. But if you were to categorize the decisions that you make, and you’re supposed to, and when you’re trying to decide, yes, this is wrong, or this is right, this is the way that God wants me to go, these are the two kind of spheres of thinking. And where you want to be is where the two circles meet, right? Where God’s holy law, his commands for you, and where his wisdom, his precepts, the ways and the means by which that God would consider you wise. Where those two circles meet is where you want to be in the decisions that you make.

Now, what if that decision has less to do with God’s law, less to do with God’s wisdom, but what if it’s outside of those two kind of spheres? What if it’s just your personal preference. And that’s what this next circle is, is God actually cares what you like. God actually cares that you like blue, and that you wanted to wear a blue sweater today, Danny, and that some of you have Androids, and some of you have iPhones, and God doesn’t care, I don’t think, that you have preferences, that you have likes, that God is giving you the fullness of the earth to enjoy, right? Whether it’s you’re a beach person, or you’re a mountain person, or whether you like, I guess you really shouldn’t be eating a lot of fatty, cholesterol-high foods, but if you want to, I guess you can. There’s really no prohibition against that, except that, you know, your body is a temple, and you should probably maintain it, but God actually likes that you like his creation, that you want to enjoy his creation.

The fact, let me give you a more practical thing here, you know, whether it’s to major in biology, or physics, or in art history, God has indwelled in you a certain desire for things. And for some of you, that’s science-y things, and some of you, that’s history, and for some of you, it’s none of those things, and you don’t know what you want to do, and God has a place for you, too. God has a place for all of those, all those of you who have no idea what you want to do in life. God has a purpose for you, he has a plan for you, and you don’t have to fit into the the hole that your parents want to peg you into, right? Or that society, or that your community wants to put you into, right? God delights in the fact that you are you, that you are unique, that you are quirky, or you’re really smart, or kind of not so smart, but really good in other things, right? That’s also part of God’s sovereign will for you, and that’s such a beautiful thing, right? That God likes you for who you are. In fact, he made you that way to serve a purpose in his kingdom, and so we have these three circles within God’s big circle of his sovereign will, and nothing can thwart that, right? God has given you a brain, he’s given you logic, he’s given you the ability to reason, he’s given you the ability to make decisions, because you are a free moral agent to do that. That was God’s plan for mankind, to give you the ability to choose for yourself. Adam and Eve chose for themselves, and here we are, right? But God has extended that privilege, that right for man to decide for themselves what course they want in their life, but all of it falls under this sphere of God’s sovereign will, his purposes.

So it’s, to me, it is a difficult thing for some of us when we have to face decisions of various kinds, and there are decisions that are probably, that you’re kind of sailing away from, that you had to make, that were very difficult, and there’s decisions that you’re sailing into, right, or that you’re having to make a lot sooner than later, that are going to be very difficult. And I want to bring us into a Pentecostal Malayalee context, where there are a lot of voices, sometimes literally in your ear, telling you to go in this direction or that direction. And what I don’t want to do is say that any of those voices are invalid, or that you shouldn’t listen to them. Prophecy is very abundant in our church, in our churches, in our community. Prophets are everywhere. There are people in your church, and in your community, in your family, that tell you, you know, mone mone, this is what I heard from the Lord regarding XYZ. And all of those things are, all of those things are actually allowed in Scripture. All of those things are actually things that we read about in Scripture. Those are all gifts, spiritual gifts. Those are all, you know, words of wisdom. Whatever it is that that prophecy or that word of wisdom falls under, whatever gifting that falls under, those are all things that were ordained by God.

But, as 1 John 4 says, test the Spirit, right? Every single thing that you hear at a convention, a conference, a church, prayer meeting, cottage meeting, whatever, that pertains to a certain decision that you have to make, all of those things, we have to go through the filter of these things, right? Is it within the moral will of God? Is it within His Godly and biblical wisdom? And at the end of the day, is it something that you feel like is in your personal, kind of, sphere of what you want to do in life, right? If someone tells you, you have to go to Africa, God’s will for you is for you to go to Africa. But, like, you’re in the middle of residency and you really aren’t in a position to go to Africa. Or you’re in a whole lot of debt and you can’t even pay for the ticket to go to Africa. Is that necessarily God’s will? I don’t know. It could be. It could still be. But God is a God who takes His moral law, what He wants for you in life, His Holy Word, and all of those things play into the decision-making. And our goal, to the best of our ability, by the grace of God, is to be kind of at the center of all of those things. And maybe going off, you know, overseas for missions, maybe right now isn’t God’s will for you, but perhaps in the future. So the prophecy isn’t wrong. And maybe God’s will for you is to go overseas for missions, but maybe that’s not something that you have the capacity for. Maybe that’s not God’s will for you right now. Maybe that’s something for the future. But do not be distressed just because someone tells you a word from the Lord. Everything has to be tested. God makes provisions for that in Scripture. Nothing is, you know, this is what the Lord says that you must do, because I heard from it audibly, you must do it. Everything has to be tested.

So I know, I’m harping on this because I know there’s been a lot of distress over the years, whether in this setting, a previous setting, other settings that you’ve been into, where Brother XYZ, who’s well-meaning, has said, this is God’s will for you. Do it. Pastor XYZ, coming to your house and saying, I heard from the Word, I heard a word from the Lord, this is God’s will for you. Go. Go and do it. Go and, you know, go to that major, talk to this person, whatever. This is God’s will for you. Just be careful. Test the spirits. This is, this is not a, this is not like Samuel saying, don’t do this, Jeremiah saying, don’t do this.

In the New Testament, in this age of grace that we’re in, there is a different provision that God has given us when it comes to voices from the Lord, words from the Lord, and everything just needs to be tested. Everything needs to go, the filter of God’s Word goes through the filter of God’s holy law and his role, his desire for sanctification in your life. And then ultimately, God actually cares what you want, too. You’re not, you’re not some, like, kind of body just kind of floating around. He cares for you. He cares that what you like, he cares what you do, he cares that you have proclivities to certain things when we’re making decisions. And at the end of the day, as 2 Timothy 1:7 says, God is not, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he’s given us a power, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And different translations say different things. Sound mind could be disciplined in some translations. But basically, this verse is saying that God has given you the ability to make a rational, logical decision within God’s sovereign plan for you, for your life. That he hasn’t just left you to fend for yourself, he’s given us, he’s deposited within us the Spirit of God. And it’s not just for really, really big decisions in life, but it’s also for the day-to-day. And he’s given you not a spirit of fear for you to fear those things or to be anxious about those things, though anxieties and fears might creep in, but he’s given you, one, a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Sound mind. God has given you also the ability to reason for yourself, to think within God’s plan for you.

What a sobering thought that there are many decisions that we have to make, especially for those of us who are maybe a little older or getting older. Very difficult, painful decisions that some of us have to make. But God has given us his word, his law, and his assurance that he loves us and he cares for us. And just as he cares for the sparrow, just as he cares for, just as he knows every blade of grass that exists and every hair on our head, he cares for our desires, he cares for our wants in life. And through those lenses or those filters, God allows us to make sound decisions. What a beautiful thing.

And for those of us going through difficult times, we should pray for each other. We should continue to remember that many of us are going through very difficult, fiery trials right now, and to never let off the continual prayer for each other. For those of us who get exhausted and weary or just kind of forgetful, that there are difficult times and phases and seasons that we’re all going through, our desire to pray, our kind of burden to pray should be ten times more when we get weary like that. So choir, y’all can come up. Maybe now is a good time for just kind of quietly remembering those of us who are going through difficult times, who have difficult decisions to make, and maybe you yourself are going through a difficult time right now with a very difficult decision to make. And maybe you’re kind of left in the aftermath, the very poor decision-making. Hopefully not as bad as the kings of Israel, but hopefully you are encouraged by the fact that you are still within God’s sovereign will for your life, that he has not let you go, that he has not forsaken you or forgotten you or left you to fend for yourself in the aftermath of the decisions that you’ve made or you will make. Maybe this pertains to your family. Maybe it pertains to your school, wherever you are in whatever grade that you’re in. Maybe it pertains to some kind of major financial decision that you can make. Nothing is irrelevant or, you know, not part of God’s sovereign plan for you.

And so just taking a couple moments not only to pray for yourself, which is important, but also to pray for all of us in here, for the Church, and praying that God gives us the wisdom, that God saturates us with his Word, that we’re indwelled with the Spirit, with his Spirit, that there’s an overflowing of that Spirit that gives us the words of wisdom, gives us the prophecies, gives us what we need to know for the times that we’re going through. If you could just pray for each other, just to yourselves. Pray for yourself that he would give us exactly what we need, perhaps from the person that’s sitting next to us or across from us or, you know, over the course of Sunday services. Someone who’s hearing from the Lord, perhaps, that needs to tell you exactly what you need to know. And God’s Word is very specific. It’s not supposed to be vague. Prophecies are not supposed to be wrong ever. It’s right every single time. It’s supposed to be specific. It’s supposed to be often challenging to us. Not necessarily words of prosperity and hope every time, but sometimes it’s a word of challenge to us. It’s words of warning to us sometimes. Perhaps that’s what we need to hear this evening.

And can we lift up those leaders, elders, deacons, anyone who is in any position of authority for the decisions that they have to make, the decisions that they have to make in the future. That we do everything with prayerful consideration. That our pastors are leading with great care, great fear, knowing that there’s so many things, so many moving parts, and so many ramifications of the decisions that are to be made. Those things that deal with, obviously, the administration and the finances of the church, but also in the individual lives of the families that they shepherd. That they would be given the wisdom to help others make decisions. Let’s be thankful for those of us who have had people pour into us over the years that have helped us make those decisions. Whether that’s parents, whether that’s siblings, or our mentors, uncles and aunties, who have really been there our whole lives, who have been sensitive to God’s leading, and probably far more prayerful and indwelled in the Word of God than we will ever be, perhaps. For those who have really spoken words of hope, and wisdom, and care, and concern, and warning in our lives, let’s thank God for each and every one of them.

And lastly, for ourselves, many of us have decisions that we have to make in the near future. Many of us are thoroughly confused about what’s gonna happen, and what’s next, and what paths to take. We may have even been given conflicting information, things that don’t even make sense, that you know doesn’t really seem to be from the Lord, and that’s kind of clouded things. Let’s pray that God gives us the wisdom that He fills us with that power, and that love, and the soundness of mind to make decisions that ultimately bring Him glory, and in that, that we would be able to glorify, to glory in Him, that our, that every one of our desires are met, in both glorifying Him, and being glorified in Him, and what joy that will bring. Amen.