With hymn number 25 in your spiral
gospel hymns hymn book, let's all stand together. Number 25. I love it in my heart. And if I could, I would obey
in spirit every part. Your law is holy, just, and good,
all perfect and all true. But I'm a weak and sinful wretch,
It's works I cannot do. And yet your law condemns me
not, It's all been satisfied, By your own son, my substitute,
When ye four sinners die. In life Christ wrought in righteousness,
such as the law required. In death he bore your dreadful
wrath, and there the curse expired. And now your laws become my friend,
demanding my release. It points to Jesus slain for
me, and gives me perfect peace. By faith in Jesus Christ I'm
free, from condemnation free. For all your law requires of
me, Christ Jesus is my queen. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to John chapter 17. John 17. We'll begin reading in verse
19, John 17, verse 19. And for their sakes, I sanctify
myself. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that could say that. He makes himself holy. That they
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word. That they all may be one, as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may
be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them,
that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the
world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as
thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. They may behold my glory, which
thou hast given me. For thou lovest me before the
foundation of the world. Tonight we're going to be looking
at the will of God. And in that verse we just read.
The Lord Jesus says to his father. I will. That they also, which
thou hast given me, be with me where I am. That will cannot be denied. It will be will be fulfilled. Oh, righteous father. The world
hath not known us. But I have known thee. And these
have known that thou has sent me. And I have declared unto
them thy name. And will declare it. That the
love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them. And I in them. Is to pray together. Robert is
back in the hospital. He never did recover from COVID
and went back in Sunday, Monday, Monday. Just very, very weak so and. And bird is. I had some difficult
days this week as well. So let's let's pray together. Our glorious, merciful heavenly
father. What comforting words we just
read. What hope? And peace we have and knowing. That it's your word. And that it cannot be denied.
and that it is spiritual. And it is true, Lord, that you
are faithful to keep all of your promises. And we rest the hope
of our immortal soul and our life on thy word, my person,
thy work, my promises. Lord, we We pray tonight that
you would forgive us, Lord, for so much unbelief and that you
would increase our faith and that you would grow us in your
grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We pray that you would
increase our love for the and for one another. We pray, Father,
for our brothers, Robert and Bert, and we asked for your hand
of comfort and strength and grace to be upon them. We pray, Lord,
that you would remind us by your spirit to lift them up to the
throne of grace. They might find your help in
time of need. Bless your word now and show us the glory of Christ. We ask it in his name. Amen. Let's all stand together once
again and we'll sing hymn number 485 from the Hardback Tymnal.
485. ? Praise thee, O God, for the Son
of my love ? ? For Jesus who died and is now gone above ?
? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? ? Hallelujah, amen ? ? Hallelujah,
thine the glory, revive us now ? ? Praise thee, O God ? For thy
spirit of light ? Who has shown us our Savior ? And scattered
our night ? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Hallelujah, amen
? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Revive us again ? Glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain ? ? Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain ? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? ? Hallelujah, amen
? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory, revive us again ? ? Revive us again ? Fill each heart
with thy love ? May each soul be rekindled with fire from above
? Hallelujah, thine good glory ? Hallelujah, amen ? Hallelujah,
thine good glory Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to First Peter chapter four. First Peter chapter four. I so much enjoyed looking at
verse one last Wednesday night and found great comfort in knowing
that he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. I don't suppose there's anything
that a believer wants to do more than to cease from sin. And in Christ, we have. When the Lord Jesus died on Calvary's
cross, he put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself. and
crucified in Him before God Almighty, in our new nature, we have ceased
from sin. And the hope that we have in
departing from this world is that we will be without sin,
so that when we suffer in the flesh in that day that has been
appointed by God to leave this world, we will no longer have
any experience with sin whatsoever. They that have suffered in the
flesh have ceased from sin. We really can't look at the next
couple of verses with any understanding without considering them in light
of verse one. And so I wanted to go back to
verse one briefly and just remind you of the position that we have
in Christ. Because the practice that we're
being encouraged to follow in the next few verses comes from
our position. We looked at that last Wednesday
night. And it's just the opposite of
everything this world knows about. You think about it. You start
out in school. Your position comes from your
practice. The more you practice and perform,
the higher position you achieve. In work, in career, it's the
same way. Position comes from practice,
and it comes from performance. That's especially true in sports,
isn't it? Your position, whether you be
in first place or second place or third place, comes as a result
of your performance and your practice. And so it is with everything
in this world, everything in this world, Your position comes
as a reward from your performance and your practice. And when men make the law, the
gospel, then that's what you end up with in religion. And
so you have a hierarchy of positions in man-made religion. and you
have people that are highly esteemed above others and you have this
pecking order of holiness and progressive sanctification all
as a result of one's performance and one's practice. They're doing
it in religion exactly like everything else in the world is done. God says my ways are not your
ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above
your ways. When men try to figure out on
their own how to get to God, they get it backwards. Backwards. It's not that man's understanding
needs to be tweaked. It's not that they need to you
know, just be taught a little bit better away, we by nature
see everything upside down from the way it is. So when we look
at the next couple of verses, which do admonish us to a practice,
we understand that these encouragements and admonishments from a position
of holiness. We're not seeking to achieve
a position by our performance. We already have that position
in Christ. We're already holy. We're already
undefiled. We're already, we're already,
in Christ having a righteousness that is not of our own. And this
is, we're not trying to earn something. The Lord Jesus Christ
earned it for us, and he put us in himself. And so from that
position, the Lord has often in the scriptures to say, this
is who we are. Colossians chapter three, if
you'd be in risen with Christ, seek those things which are above
where Christ has seated at the right hand of God, not the things
of this earth. And he declares our position
in Christ and being holy and undefiled. And then goes on to
say, therefore mortified the members of your body. in light
of. We're not improving our position. We're not establishing our position. We can't have a better position
than what we have through faith in Christ. You can't improve
that. You can't get in a better place
before God than to be found in Christ. Christ, who is our life,
is our hope. It's been said that, I want us
to think tonight about the will of God, the will of God. And it's been said that when
you preach, tell them what you're gonna say, say what you're gonna
say, and then tell them what you did say. So I'm gonna tell
you what I'm gonna say. As concerning the will of God,
what the Bible teaches about the will of God is that there
is the decreed will of God, the decreed will of God, which is
perfectly fulfilled all the time. And then there is the commanded
will of God, which has never been fulfilled by any man save
one. So when we're considering the
will of God, we must think about it in both of those areas. God's decreed will cannot be
altered. It cannot be changed. Look at the next verse. Well, we'll begin in verse one.
For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh,
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that hath
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. Reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin. Reckon it to be so because it
is so. ceased from sin before God. We'd
not be able to come into the presence of a holy God if there
was any sin found on us. If the Lord should mark iniquity,
who should stand? If he takes notice of one sin,
we would not be able to come into his presence now or for
eternity. So in order to come before the
throne of grace with boldness, we must have ceased from sin,
must be gone. That he no longer should live
the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the
will of God. for the time past of our life
may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when
we walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, reveling,
banqueting, and abominable idolatries wherein they think it strange
that you run not with them to the same excess of riots speaking
evil of you. who shall give account to him
that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. These believers
had come out of a Gentile world and now the Lord has changed
their lives and their old acquaintances and friends are wondering what's
happened, why won't you do these things anymore? He said, Well, because the Lord has taught
us something about the will of God. He's taught us something
about the will of God. And he's changed our wanter to
rejoice in his will, to rejoice in his will. There are I speak from my own personal
experience. I know back in religion we used to fret over the will
of God for our lives, especially when we were younger. What is
God's will for my life? What would he have me to do?
Who should I marry and what job should I pursue? And all of these
sort of things concerning particular matters in life, what is God's
will. And looking back now, I realized
that we were under the impression that if you could discover this
secret pathway to life, that you'd have smooth sailing. But
if you didn't, you'd be in rough seas. And so,
in fact, we weren't really so concerned about God's will for
our lives as we were concerned about living an easier life. It wasn't that we necessarily
longed after knowing the pleasure of God. We thought, well, you
know, there is a God and he has a will, and if I could just figure
it out, it's gonna make my life a lot better and a lot easier.
That's walking after the flesh. That's being more concerned about
pleasure in my life than the pleasure of God. Acting spiritual, as if we were
really concerned about what the will of God was. No, we were
just concerned about trying to make our lives easier. Truth is that in terms of God's
providence, the will of God will put you
as a believer smack dab in the eye of the storm. So thinking that the will of
God is somehow going to get gonna make life a bed of roses, that's
not what the scripture teaches. What does the Bible say about
the will of God? And another error that's very
closely associated with the one that I just described about trying
to discover God's will for your life is the idea that God has
a perfect will and God has a permissive will. that he has a plan B. He has kind of like on your phone
when you're following your GPS to a place and you turn a wrong
way. And what does it say? Recalculating. You know, like you make a wrong
turn along the pathway of God's perfect will, and he says, okay,
well, I'll permit that for now, but then he has to recalculate
to get you back on track. We used to think that way, and
I know people think that way now, when it comes to the will
of God. The will of God. God's will Doesn't have any detours. He doesn't recalculate. He doesn't
have a plan B. God's decreed will. You say,
well, what is God's will for my life? You're sitting smack
dab in the middle of it right now. When it comes to his decreed
will. When it comes to God's decreed will. It is fulfilled
perfectly. Perfectly. The will of God as it relates
to the circumstances of our lives is always on schedule. It's always
being fulfilled perfectly. There's a verse in 1 Thessalonians
chapter five. I want you to look at it with
me if you will. 1 Thessalonians chapter five. And I've tried to be accurate on this and I
believe I have some understanding on it. Verse 18, 1 Thessalonians chapter
five, verse 18. In everything give thanks, for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. And I used to think that the
word this was a reference to giving thanks. It's always God's
will that I be a thankful person. But the structure of this verse
is not that way. The word this refers back to
everything. That's what the word this refers
to in this verse. In everything give thanks, for
this, everything, is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. Now, wherever you find yourself
to be in the everything of life, God puts you there. Sometimes his providence is hard
and sometimes it's easy. I like easy. I like easy. It's always good and it's always
right. And he's always sovereign over it. In every circumstance,
in everything, give thanks for everything is the will of God
in Christ Jesus concerning you. Nothing can happen outside of
God's sovereign control and God's sovereign purpose and God's sovereign
will with his people and with the unbeliever. You say, well,
what about all the wicked things that men do? the wrath of man
shall praise him, and the remainder he shall restrain. So whatever God doesn't have,
whatever he hasn't purposed and ordained in his divine will,
in his decreed will, he restrains. It doesn't matter what men might
think or what they might try to do, he restrained it. And
whatever they do, he purposed it. And for the child of God,
it's good. For we know, we know that all
things work together for good for them that love God and those
that are called according to his purpose. This is the decreed
will of God. It cannot be changed. It is always
fulfilled. His purpose is always accomplished.
He doesn't have a permissive will. He doesn't have a plan
B. He doesn't have a perfect will for your life that you've
got to somehow figure out and discover. We walk by faith. Psalm 115 verse three. Our God
is in the heavens. and he hath done, past tense,
whatsoever he hath pleased. Oh, what a glorious God we serve.
What a great God. The decreed will of God is right
on schedule, brethren. All the things that happen in
the big events of the world that that sometimes concern us, God's
in control of that. Whatever happens in our lives,
God has purposed it. God has decreed it. His will
is being fulfilled. It is being carried out perfectly,
perfectly. The fact that God would use men How many free, uncoerced thoughts
and decisions are being done every hour of every day by the
billions of people that live on this earth? the factor mathematically is
beyond our comprehension. And yet no decision and no choice
that any man makes changes the sovereign will and purpose of
our God in any way. And when David thought about
this in Psalm 139, he said, such knowledge is too wonderful for
me. I can't even begin to enter into
this. He said, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is
high, I cannot attain unto it. God, how can I begin to comprehend
how omnipotent and how sovereign and how glorious you are that
you would use all the means of this world that seem to be free
and uncoerced and depended upon man's will. And yet in all of that, you accomplish
your purpose. It makes him more glorious, doesn't
it? The will of God in decree is
always perfectly fulfilled. Always. I find such comfort and such
hope, such peace and knowing that our God reigns, he reigns. Nothing outside of his control,
nothing outside of his will, his will. The will of God in command, as
we just read in our text, has never been fulfilled by a son
of Adam. Only one ever accomplished the
will of God by command. Paul said, to will is present
with me. I wish I could fulfill. I wish
I could obey the will of God, the command of God. I love God's
law. I love his precepts. I love his
counsel. I love his admonitions. I love
his exhortations. We would obey him perfectly if
we could. And that's what Paul was saying
in Romans chapter seven when he said, to will is present with
me. But how to perform that which
is good, I find not. I can't accomplish the will of
God given to me by decree. I mean, by command. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 29.
You're familiar with this verse, but I want us to look at it.
Deuteronomy 29. Verse 29, the secret things belong to the
Lord our God. Now that's the will of God by
decree. That's the purpose of God in
providence. Those are secret things. The
only way we know what the will of God is in providence is by
looking back at it. We have no idea what God's gonna
do in the future. The secret things belong to the
Lord our God. But those things which are revealed
belong unto us and to our children forever that we may do all the
words of his law. And that's the will of command,
which we have never been able to accomplish. But we, we love
God's commands. We love his law, we love his
precepts. We love what knowing what we
love him. If we love him, we love what
pleases him. We love what he's pleased with.
We love holiness, we love righteousness. David said, thy word is a lamp
unto my feet, it's a light unto my path. The precepts of God's
word, we delight in them. Turn with me to Proverbs chapter
six, Proverbs chapter six. Remember, the will of God by
command is heard and obeyed and followed and believed as a result
of our position. We're not seeking to achieve
a position like we do in every other thing in life. We already
had that position in Christ. And from that position, we delight
in his revealed, the things revealed have been given to us and to
our children. Look at Proverbs chapter six
at verse 20. My son, keep thy father's commandments
and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually
upon thy heart and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it
shall lead thee, and when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee,
and when thou wakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment
is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are
the way of life. God leads his children. by his
precepts and by his commandments. We have never been able to keep
them. And sometimes we rebel against
them grievously. And all of that cannot change
the decreed will of God. When God, the Holy Ghost, sweetly
blends His grace with His Word in the hearts of His children,
He lovingly persuades them to hear His voice, to believe on
Him, to follow Him. He gives them grace to trust
Him, He causes them to desire not to be the way the
world is. He works in them, causing them
to will and to do after his good pleasure. This is a work of grace
and it has nothing to do with our position. But if we have a position of
righteousness and holiness before God in Christ, it will be the
desire of our hearts. It'll be the desire of our hearts. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter five. We're not trying to establish
our righteousness. We're not going about trying
to prove our salvation or trying to establish our righteousness.
We're not like those men Paul talked about in Romans chapter
10 who who have a zeal for God, but without knowledge, going
about to establish their own righteousness, they're ignorant
of the righteousness of God, not knowing that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We
have a perfect position of righteousness before God in Christ, not having
our own righteousness, which is by the law. We're not talking
about that. We're not talking about keeping
the law in order to establish a righteousness. We're not talking
about trying to perform something for the purpose of improving
our position before God. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
five, verse 14. For the love of Christ
constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all,
then we're all dead. When Christ died, everyone that
he bore the sins for died with him. That's why Paul said, I'm
crucified with Christ. I died. And that he died for all, verse
15, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him which died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth,
know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we him no more. Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are
passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. The Lord said, my yoke is easy,
my burden is light. He bore the burden of performance. He kept the law. He bore the burden of penalty
for sin, the wrath and judgment of God to put away our sin. And so he's telling us, come
get in the yoke with me. I've already bore the burden
of the yoke. My burden is light now. My yoke
is easy. Learn of me. We rejoice in knowing God's will. The inspiration and motivation cannot be any
stronger than Christ died for us and that we are dead in him. Here's what I'm saying. We live
in the present with one eye looking back to the future and the other
eye looking to the, one eye looking back to the past and the other
eye looking forward to the future. That's how we live, we live by
faith, we walk by faith. One more passage, Titus chapter
two. Titus chapter two. You know, I have to deal with
people that listen to a message like this, and they'll say, preacher,
you just put us back under the law. You took away all of our
hope. They don't want to hear anything
about this sort of thing. And there's a verse here that
I want to remind those people of. Look at verse 11. For the
grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly loss, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Looking
for that blessed, do you see one eyes back to the past, the
grace of God, we're looking back to our position in Christ on
Calvary's cross. looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us
from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. And look at verse 15. You know, you bring out these verses,
I'm just reading God's word. God's people rejoice in this,
don't you? I've never been able to keep one of God's laws one
time. I've never been able to satisfy
the demand of God's command, God's will of command. But Christ did that. These things speak and exhort. That word exhort means encourage. I hope this is an encouraging
message. and rebuke with all authority.
Someone wants to be, you know, wants to justify, you know, disobedience
because they're under grace. Now rebuke and let no man despise
thee. Don't let the accusations that
men make who don't want to hear these sort of things stop you
from speaking the truth. This is just scripture, isn't
it? Isn't it? And this is what we
desire. Now, in closing, when was God's
will of command kept? Turn with me to John chapter
four. We're gonna look at a few verses quickly. John chapter
four. The will of God in decree is right on schedule, perfectly
fulfilled all the time. Our sovereign God has everything
exactly where it's supposed to be. Nothing's ever been out of
place, won't be out of place, can't be out of place. That's
God's will of decree. And in that regard, we're right
in the middle of God's will right now. His will of command has
never been kept by a son of Adam, but it was kept by Christ. Look
at John chapter four, verse 34. Jesus saith unto them, my meat
is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. Those disciples came back from
Sychar and they wanted They brought lunch with them. They wanted
the Lord to eat. He said, I'm not hungry. The Lord had just
been talking to that woman at the well. He said, my meat, my
sustenance, my whole purpose of life is to do the will of
him that sent me and to finish the work that he gave me to do.
And that he did, that he did. Turn over just a page to John
chapter five. At verse 30, John chapter five,
verse 30, I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge
and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will, but
the will of the father which hath sent me. And you and I can't
say, we seek our own will, so what don't we? The Lord said,
I seek not my own will, I seek the will of the Father which
sent me. Look at chapter six, verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out, for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will,
but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me
I should lose nothing. So he came to do the Father's
will. What was the Father's will? To save his people. He said,
I'm not going to lose one. That's what I came to do. I came
to fulfill my Father's will perfectly. The will of command. The will
of salvation. I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. This is the will of God. That's
what the Lord Jesus came to do. One more passage, Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews chapter 10. Only the Lord Jesus could say
what is recorded here in God's word. What does the Bible say
about the will of God? That's what we're looking at.
Look at chapter 10 at verse six. in burnt offerings and sacrifice
for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. No sacrifice that I make is going
to please God, to put me in a position of favor with God. Then said I, this is the Lord Jesus speaking,
lo, I come. In the volume of the book, it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said sacrifice
and offerings and burn offerings and offerings for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hast thou pleasure therein, which are offered by
the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He take it the way of the first
that he may establish the second by the which will we are sanctified. We're holy, perfect. There's
our position. We're not reading the precepts
and the commandments of God and thinking, well, if I can achieve
some level of obedience in these things that I can improve my
position with God. No, the Lord Jesus Christ said,
In the volume of the book it is written of me, lo, I have
come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first. What
is the first? That's the law. It's salvation
by works, and he's established the second. By the which will?
The will that he performed, the will that he perfected. We are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. Once for all. We're not talking about some
sort of legal salvation or works gospel here. He did the will of God. 1 John 2, verse 17, I'm just gonna
read it. The world passeth away and all
the lust thereof But he that doeth the will of God abideth
forever. Now, what is it for me and you
to do the will of God? It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever, forever. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us a successful, obedient,
perfect Savior who did your will of command. Every eye he dotted,
every tee he crossed, he came to fulfill thy law. He came not to destroy or to
take away, but to fulfill. And what comfort and hope we
have in knowing that we are secure in Him. Lord, thank you for your
precepts. Thank you for the revealed will
of God. Thank you for sharing, for telling
us what it is that pleases you. And thank you for your Holy Spirit.
And Lord, give us grace to walk in faith and obedience. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. 1 25. Let's stand together. 1
25. I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and
pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus, take it all, all to thee. ? Sin had left a crimson stain
? He washed it white as snow ? Lord, now indeed I find ? Thine
power and thine alone ? And changed the lamp of spots ? And embellished
the heart of stone ? Jesus paid it all All to Him I owe Sin had
left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow For nothing
good have I Whereby thy grace to blame I'll wash my garments
white In the blood of Calvary's Lamb Jesus paid it all, all to
Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white. And when before the throne I
stand in him complete, Jesus died my soul to save. My lips shall still repeat, Jesus
paid it all, all to save. Sid had left a crimson stain
he'd washed in white as snow.