Would you turn in your Bibles
back to Matthew 7 for a moment, briefly, as we prepare to deal
with what I am looking forward to talking to you about today,
and that is the issue of knowing the will of God for your life.
The issue of knowing the will of God for your life. I want
to start at Matthew 7, but we are going to be going through
a number of passages simply because whenever anyone asks you to help
them try to understand the will of God for their life, they are
asking you an impossible question. Let me see if I can work that
out with us today. It's definitely gonna be a study in reason from
a biblical perspective, trying to establish some things that
might be difficult for you to grasp, but I hope and trust that
over time you will get this. So I'm gonna let you know up
front When we're done with the message, get the CD, listen 10
times, because the things that are gonna be said can be very
difficult. When you hear someone ask the
sincere, very earnest and sincere question about the will of God
and the will of God for their life, they generally do frame
it, you know what, I really wanna know what God's will is for my
life. And we really think that that's
like the big one. If we get that, we're good. Here's the problem. When you
raise that question, you are actually dealing with two questions
at one time. And you have to parse them and
understand the distinctives between the two questions inherent in
the one. The first question that you are
really raising is, What is the will of God? Do you guys hear
that? What is the will of God? See,
the reason why I say that's the first question you're raising
is because if you assume you know what the will of God is,
and now you're only simply wanting to find out what the will of
God is for you, then you have assumed something too big. What
you and I must know is that the will of God for you and for me
is to know the will of God. I want you to hear what I'm saying.
I know it sounds like a rhetorical device that's nice and quaint,
but for those of you who are listening to me, God's will for
you is to know his will. God's will for you is to know
His will. Did anybody get an epiphany right
there? Raise your hand if you did. Right. See, this is very
important. I want you to get this because
I'm going to work with this today. This is the this is the dilemma
of the blessed believer knowing the will of God. But if the believer
gets a handle on the character of God's will, Relative to God
working in his or her or their life They will largely have the
answer that they need in terms of so what I'm supposed to do
now What I am stating as I begin to work through this exegetically
in verse by verse is that What you will discover in your walk
if you are a believer is that if you grow to know and understand
God's will period It will take care of your will. It will take
care of your will. And when you understand that
the big, big issue in life for you as a believer is simply knowing
God and knowing His will, everything that takes place in the particulars
and the uniqueness and the specificity of your life, it will fall right
into place. Now I'm gonna warn you watch
this. I'll warn you you're not gonna necessarily like what you
are dealing with You're not gonna like necessarily the choices
that you've made You're not gonna necessarily like the situation
that you are in Until you understand that this is God's will for me
See the reality is here's the reality The reality is we're
asking for our will to be done and for God to sign off on it.
I mean, really, that's what we're doing. Can I get a witness? I
just need some honest folk in the house. Now, you didn't think
it was that way, but really that's what it is. You're coming through
the back door saying, you know, I wanna be this, I wanna be that,
I really want this and I really want that, and I would love to
have this work out this way and that work out that way. God,
would you sign off on that? Can that be your wheel for my
life? But when you do that, when you
do that, you are really overlooking the thing that God has for you,
which is most important. And you're gonna hear me underscore
this fundamental axiom for months until you get it. When we went
through the series on forgiveness, the essence of that series in
terms of its basic objective lie in this statement. God values
what? God values relationship. And this is eternal life. That
they know you, the only true God, and Jesus, whom you have
sent. Did you guys get that now watch
this if we're spending our time pursuing a knowledge of God Don't
you think this God who wants you to know him know how to take
care of your business? But you're gonna have to believe
that and understand that or else Pursuing the will of God for
you will evade you for the rest of your life. And you know, what?
It'll make you unhappy It'll bring about doubts It'll cause
you to question whether or not God loves you. Because you will
be actually dealing with it from the inverse. You'll be dealing
with it from the premise of you and not from the premise of God.
Does that make sense, you guys? Okay, so let's go to work because
what we are really wanting to do today is understand the hard
question. Matthew 7 verse 21 is the verse that I want to launch
out in this discourse and thought with you today. And it's because
our master closes out largely all of his eschatological parables
with a terminology that you may miss. Eschatology means the study
of what? End time things. The Greek term
eschatos means to come to an end, a final state, the last. It's like when you die. In fact,
that word is often used concerning those who have died because they
have come to the end of their life. Now, isn't it important
for you and I to know that when we come to the end of our life,
that we don't know the will of God for us, but the will of God,
period. Isn't that important? Look at
what the text says. Look at it. Not everyone that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, that's a phraseology for religious folk,
church folk, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Isn't
that what we're trying to get? We're not trying to have our
best life now. We're not trying to manipulate God to give us,
you know, a largeness of life and a blinging status here. What
profit is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his
soul? And lose his soul. He's a fool, isn't he? If he
were to become a multi-billionaire and still miss glory. But the
text tells me right here very clearly, if he misses glory,
he misses glory for one reason. He did not do the will of God. Is that a good place to start?
Because that's the wicked gate that Mr. Bunyan talked about
getting through. We're going to enter into the
celestial city. When we knock on that door, the question is
going to be raised. Did you do the will of God? Isn't that good? OK, so let's
go to work now. In your outline, point number
one, let's work this through. There are several aspects to
the will of God that I want us to work through, several aspects,
several perspectives from which we must consider what the word
of God has to say about the will of God. Do anybody know the term
univocal or univocal, what that word means? Anybody know that?
Okay, I forgot, we went to government school. Okay, so the term means
the meaning of a thing is only one way, a one meaning word. Like the word has only one definition,
univocal. Who knows what equivocal means? Equivocal means it can have multiple
meanings and multiple applications at the same time. You guys follow
that? So often what you and I are dealing with are words that either
have one singular meaning and it can never be used any way
but that way. But most words have what we call
univocal, equivocal meanings. meaning that we can actually
interpret them contextually according to the circumstance. The word
sun can be understood as the sun in the sky. But when we look
at it in the context of the book of Malachi, we know that it's
referring to the sun of righteousness with healing in his wings. When
we use the word cold, we can understand cold as that temperature
that drives us to want to put on a jacket. at other times when
we use the word cold we know it means the hardness of the
heart against God and then we use it in our vernacular as a
sharp suit or a tight brother y'all understand what I'm talking
about that brother cold right these are these are equivocal
meanings that have multiple applications And generally what we would do
to affirm the significance and meaning of a word is attach what
we call descriptives or adjectives to them. When we are dealing
with the will of God, you must know that the will of God has
to be understood in terms of descriptions and adjectives to
parse the way the word of God is understood and explained in
the scriptures or else what you do is you run into what appear
to be contradictions. what we call theologically paradoxes
because the contradiction in the scripture does not occur
paradoxes do and we run into these apparent contradictions
which what a paradoxes are it's only because we don't understand
the distinctive of what's taking place in the propositions that
we're dealing with does that make sense watch this then as
we work this through I want you to recognize that I'm gonna be
dealing with five Characteristics are five aspects of the will
of God that when once you and I can manage these five They
will help us when we run across scriptures that seem to contradict
themselves Okay, they will help us for instance the first Aspect
of the will of God that I want you to consider is what we call
in theology the prescriptive will of God the sorry the preceptive
will of God The word is precept What is the preceptive will of
God? It's your Bible. Your Bible is the preceptive
will of God. In other words, the whole of
your Bible is God's will. And it's so preceptively. What does that mean? God has
given us the Bible precept upon precept, line upon line, here
a little, there a little, so that in the totality of the Bible,
from Genesis to Revelation, we have God's will in precept form. Are you guys hearing me? It's
very important to know that that's true in Daniel chapter 10 verse
21 the angel comes to Daniel he's Michael who are Gabriel
Michael Gabriel rather who's fighting with Matt Michael against
the Principalities and powers in heavenly places and he says
to Daniel I have come watch this now to show you that which is
noted in the what? Scripture of truth now leave
it there for a second. Guess what the angel just did
He's saying the whole of heaven and earth are subject to the
Scriptures. Angels and men are subject to
the Scriptures, and I am here to show you what they say. Daniel was struggling with whether
or not the people of Israel should go back to the promised land
and the angel is going to explain the precepts of God that Daniel
has This angel here is a representation of what the Holy Ghost does for
us. Is that true? He gives us an understanding of his work.
It's the scripture of what true and There's none that hold with
me in these things, but Michael your prince another way to understand
the preceptive will of God is given to us in the book of Luke
chapter 4 verse 21 where our Lord he used this phrase many
times after preaching or after doing miracles or after doing
some type of Messianic mission he would say now is the scripture
fulfilled before you now is the scripture fulfilled and he began
to say to them this day what day was this the day he preached
at home in Nazareth his first home sermon He preached Isaiah
chapter 61, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. He has anointed
me to preach good tidings, to declare freedom to those that
are in bondage and captivity and liberty to the poor. And
he went on to declare that that passage in Isaiah chapter 61
is talking about me and it's fulfilled this day. What is he
saying? The preceptive will of God, that
which is written has to be fulfilled. Now, when we understand that,
here's what we as Protestants evangelicals know. That our concrete
authority for the will of God starts right here. You guys got
that? Right now, this is going to divide
between what we would call, I watch it now, presuppositionalists.
Again, I know that's another big word. This is going to separate
between those who are Biblicists and those who are not. Those
who get their authority for their position from the word of god
as the premise And those who get it out of thin air are somewhere
else for us. The bible is the foundation for
all truth God's word is the foundation for all truth. So we start with
what we call the preceptive will of god How do I frame that in
my thoughts? Whatever god's word says is his
will Now when god is talking to us through his precepts, he's
not always talking directly to us And he's not always talking
in terms of what he is doing. And he's not always giving us
commandments. Sometimes we have simply a narrative
about what God is up to. That's still a preceptive will
of God because He's revealing to you what He has done. Are
you guys following what I'm saying? For instance, Genesis chapter
1 verse 1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Is that what it says? Now God's not talking to you.
He's not telling you what He is doing. You are simply getting
a declarative of what God has done. Now we can take that, and
because we are presuppositionalists, we will say God created the world. Isn't that right? Verse 2, and
the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. Right? And the Spirit of God
moved upon the waters. Isn't that what the text says?
And then we get to verse 3, guess what happens? God starts talking. Isn't that what he does? God
starts talking, now watch this, and God said, let there be what? That's the preceptive will of
God in vocal form now. Now we know that God is a person
and not an abstract impersonal entity creating. God is talking
to us about his will now. His will is to create the universe. Do you guys see what I'm getting
at? God now has appeared in verse three as not just this inanimate,
Entity that we presume has created but he's a real person speaking
things into existence So we go to John chapter 1 verse 1 and
the beginning was the what and the word was what? With God and
the word was what was God the same was in the beginning with
God and there was nothing made that the word Did not make you
know what that means that the worlds were made by the will
of God God created all things by his
will His will. His will. He first willed it.
That's why John chapter 1 introduces His Son who created all things
as the Word. Before you make anything, you
will it. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? So, under the
first contemplation of the will of God for Christians, Bible-believing
Christians, is that we believe in the precept of the will of
God, or the Scriptures, or that which is written, and so we quote
the New Testament passage, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16. All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God, the Onesto. Breathe out by God. Breathe out by God. There again,
it's underscoring the will of God. When you and I talk, don't
we have to breathe? And what we are saying is that
God in person brings things into existence first from his will.
and then his will exerts the power to bring it into existence. So even the scriptures are the
breathed out will of God, profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof
and correction, training and righteousness for the man who
is going to be built up and qualified to do ministry. That is what
the scriptures are for. And then again, under this idea
of what we call the precept of will of God, which is where we
Christians have to start, I think in 2 Peter 1, verse 20, Holy
men of old spake, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,
right? And the word of prophecy did not come at any time by the
will of man, but by the will of God. In other words, the Spirit
of God willed to work through men to give us the Word. Am I
making some sense? So what we would say is that
the Word of God is the preceptive will of God, watch this, from
which everything else is going to be interpreted. You and I
cannot accurately interpret anything else about God's will until we
know God's what? Word. But that only makes sense. How are you going to follow anybody
if you don't first listen to them? How you gonna follow anybody
if you don't listen to him? How you gonna obey daddy unless
you hear what daddy says? Am I making some sense? Well,
I'm gonna just figure out what daddy, you don't have to talk.
I'm gonna just figure out what you say. No, father has to tell
us what to do. And once father tells us what
to do, we now move out in obedience to what he says do. Now here's
what father says after he has given us the book. Father says
he controls everything. This moves us into the second
aspect of what we call the will of God, going back to our point,
and that is what we call the decretive will of God. Sorry
about these terms. These are all ancient theological
terms, but they're necessary. You know what a decree is? It's
when a sovereign exercise fiat right to declare a thing to be,
and because whatsoever the word of the king is, there's power. So when God says a thing, it's
going to be. Now, it's important for you to
understand that that's a category in itself. It's important for
you to understand that that's a category in itself. And this
is the category, the decree of will of God, that God decrees
things. This is where you and I are getting ready to struggle.
Hold on now, because you're getting ready to struggle right here. On the
one hand, we got the Bible, we can read it. On the other hand,
in reading our precept of will, we begin to discover that this
is the way God acts, that God is doing things According to
his own volition according to his own purpose according to
his own plan according to his own will and he is Sovereignly
doing them and that makes sense until you and I start becoming
aware of what he's doing Am I making some sense watch this? Watch
this the decreed of will of God really corresponds to God being
sovereign over everything The decreed of will of God means
that God is sovereign absolutely sovereign over everything Psalm
115 verse three says, whatsoever the Lord pleases, that doeth
he. What? Whatever God wants to do,
he does to us? Absolutely. Now watch this. You
and I intellectually can embrace that until what God wants to
do is not what you want to do. I'm showing you how this next
category of the will of God is the essential one for you and
I to embrace and understand Gives us the most trouble because not
only does God do whatever he wants to do You know what else
he has said Everything in the universe is working after the
counsel of his own will Ephesians 1 11 Stay with me now. I told
you we getting ready to get in trouble. I Because while theologically
this is satisfying to people who enjoy a big God theology
I do I would much rather God be in control of absolutely everything
than anything else in the universe But now watch this. I don't always
like what God does You're gonna get in trouble now but this is
how you this is how this is how you will know whether you're
a child of God or not and Because first we accept without argument
the authority of scripture, do we? Secondly, we accept without
argument that the God of the Bible has already depicted himself
as a God who exercises rights and wills and purposes, right?
Because he is a personal being. Do you guys accept that? Thirdly,
we accept that whatever this God purposes to do, it's going
to be done. But then once we reason through
what we call implications and logical syllogisms and outcomes
of purposes, then we begin to say, oh, there's a whole lot
of evil in the world. You mean God purpose that too? And it's the moment you start
contemplating the reality of evil. Theodicy is the doctrinal
concept of it. The moment you start contemplating
the theology of evil, you really push back on the idea of God
willing evil to be. Are you with me? But if you read
your Bible carefully, you have to admit that there is an aspect
of the will of God that allows for evil. Since if God is sovereign
and didn't want it to happen, it wouldn't. You guys following
me see now we have to learn how to stay theologically sound here
if my God has created all things Proverbs chapter 16 verse 4 even
the wicked for the day of evil Then God has purposed the wicked
and he has purposed the day of evil. Is that true? I If my God
said, I create the light and I create the darkness, Isaiah
45, 7, I bring peace and I bring calamity. I, the Lord, do all
these things, then my God has purposed the wars and the conflicts
and the fighting and the battles and the deaths. Everything that's
going on in our world, He has purposed. Is that true? Now stay
with me because we don't like the implications. We don't like
the implications. Isaiah chapter 46 verse 10 under
the same rubric. Isaiah chapter 46 verse 10 under
the same rubric. This is the God, ladies and gentlemen,
that I am presenting to you that the present evangelical church
hides from you. They cannot stand the God who
takes ownership over everything that's going on in the world
Because they know that our world is messed up and their classical
argument Derives like this if God is all-powerful and if God
is all good and Yet we have all this evil in the world Either
God though being good is not all-powerful Because you can't
be all-powerful and all good and let all the evil that's going
on in the world be. You understand that argument?
So what they would say is since God is good and since there is
massive evil everywhere in the world, God cannot be what? All powerful. That's a classical
argument and it's flawed. Where is the flaw in the argument?
Their assumption of what is good. Are y'all with me right now?
See now you guys are in theology 101 today. Ain't no shouting,
ain't no partying, ain't no dancing. You can do that at the end. Right
now you got to learn to know what the will of God is. Because
people will come to you and show you in your Bible where God allows
all this evil. And sometimes God does it himself.
And they will say to you, how can you serve a God like that?
Are you hearing me? How can you serve a God like
that? And if you don't know your Bible, you'll throw your Bible
away. Many people have departed from the faith and become atheists
around this notion that God is absolutely sovereign over it.
They cannot, they cannot, they cannot imagine that God would
not only allow but ordain and purpose the destruction of multiple
people groups in the Bible. Well, he's allowing it today
in our world. And they dare to put God on the
judgment throne. and condemn him for being unrighteous
and allowing all this evil. Here is the folly in that statement. Are you ready? They are presuming
that they are more righteous than God. Are you hearing me? They're putting
God on the judgment, that's why I'm saying God. Now, it appears
that you haven't even read my book. Because in my book, there
is no room for a God who acts like you. But you see, the problem
is that we have turned things upside down in our world. They
have gone so far in their false notion of a biblical God that
they hate the fact that God created a radical, concrete, binary distinction
between male and female. I'm going there. Because the
God of the Bible has done that. Are you with me? The God of the
Bible has determined only two genders in the world. And he
has made them distinct. So that in a complementarian
way, you and I all could be in this place. I'm here to tell
you the only reason you are here is because of the concrete binary
distinction between male and female. And somehow in the providence
of time, Male and female created another male and another female
and another male and female Continue to obey the Genesis mandate of
procreation But the people who hate the God of the Bible even
hate that Because they have turned good to be evil and evil to be
good because they will not have a sovereign God who himself defines
evil according to and when he wants to and And that's the reason
why they can't do that. Would you hear me? It's because
they don't know God. Can I help you with this before
I deal with this verse? This is important. To love God is
to know him. To love God is to know him. you
you you you can't love God before you know you have you met people
who say oh I love God I love God I love and then you open
the Bible say well now Bible says there's only one way to
heaven apart from coming through Christ you're headed to hell
I don't like that oh now you don't love God When he has shut
you up to one way to glory and that one way is christ now, you
don't love him I believe a good god will accept us all by all
the ways we want to go once again You are usurping your goodness
over god's goodness and telling god. He don't know what he's
doing. And that is the book of isaiah telling the potter That
he don't have any understanding Of what he made Are you guys
following me so far? I'm laying a foundation for our
new people who have never heard theology on the sovereignty of
God or on the will of God. It's important for you to know.
Because your Bible does not contradict itself. It simply operates in
layers and in categories that if you and I don't know how to
distinguish them, we will run into roadblocks and contradictions.
Charlie Harsh's as Dr. Clark said, in between our own
ears. We're getting these knots in
our brain because we can't quite wrap our minds around sovereignty. We can't wrap our minds around
sovereignty. Listen to this verse. God declares the end from the
beginning. Kenny, that's true. If you are infinite, if you are
eternal, if you are omniscient, if you are all powerful, watch
this, you cannot declare a thing that has to happen in the end,
even before it occurs, unless you have the absolute power and
ability to make sure it comes to pass. You can't declare something
that has not yet happened as if it were unless you are God
and you know you can make it happen without anyone impeding
it. Am I making some sense? And this is why we don't buy
into the doctrine of the word of faith to speak things into
existence because I'm not stepping into God's place and acting like
I'm God. I can't even get my children
to obey God. I can't get my wife to obey me.
I can't get y'all to obey me. I'm gonna bring things into existence.
Watch this you and I are impotent when it comes to making anything
happen Now you can believe the Word of God. You can believe
the promises of God You can hang on the promises of God You should
hang on the promises of God but never get in God's way and tell
God what you gonna do as if you are God That only belongs to
a sovereign who has all of the attributes and characteristics
and predicates to bring it to pass. Are you following me, ladies
and gentlemen? Because we got a lot of religious folk in church
who think that they can just speak it into existence. You
can't speak a thing into existence. You can't speak a thing into
existence. You can hope that what you desire corresponds to
God's will. And if it should correspond to
God's will, then God will bring it to pass. But it wasn't because
you made God do anything. God ain't never bad language. said uncle to no one or anything. Are you hearing me? God ain't
never said uncle. He's never said uncle. I love
the way this goes. Listen to it. He declassified
from the beginning, from ancient times, the things that are not
yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand. Watch this. I will do all my what? The word means will. Will it
means will I will exercise my volition any way I want to anytime
I want to and no one will stop me Are you hearing me? Daniel chapter 4 verse 35 watch
it Daniel 4 35 Underscoring the same thing. This is very critical
to your understanding the will of God if you have a God Who
is limited in his abilities? You don't have the God of the
Bible If you have a God who only exists to do your will, you have
a mythical false God. And he's nothing but a bellhop,
and really, you are God. Are you guys hearing me? Watch
the language. Nebuchadnezzar figured out that he was not God. Isn't that a good day to wake
up on? Because see, the reality is we all sometimes act like
God. In a minute, you'll get that.
He woke up one day and figured out, you know what? He had walked
through his kingdom, Babylon, that great archetype of the hostile
enemy of Jerusalem, the kingdom of God. And as he was walking
through his kingdom, you know what he says? By my hands have
I built all this kingdom for my glory. Have you ever did that
walking around your house? I'm trying to bring it home now.
Have you ever did it? Have you looked at your car and
said, boy, I worked hard for that car. I worked 50 hours a
week. I labored. I toil. Do you know
that you and I don't have anything that God didn't give us? Do you
know the strength to work has to come from God? The gray matter
in your brain has to come from God. Do you believe that? Do
you believe that? So, so listen. I'm saying that
sometimes we'll slip into this pseudo god mode thinking that
we are bringing things to pass And nothing is happening apart
from god's own will Now here's what god says about you and me
here it is All the inhabitants of the earth pastor, who is that
you? Are reputed As nothing Stay right there You
say, I ain't never read that verse. Now you have. I want you to get this. Now,
this is where God has to stand back from the creature who lifts
his puny fingers up to heaven and says, my will be done. You
know what God has to say to all of us? You're nothing. You're
nothing. And the word reputed means in
heaven, you don't have a reputation. You got one down here. But when
we look in heaven, we don't even see your name on the register.
And he's talking about the kingdoms of men, carnal men who boast
and name themselves at the gods and build whole cities and nations
after their own agendas and families. Are you hearing me? You know
what God says? You're nothing. And do you know when you and
I are going to come to a saving knowledge of Christ, you got
to realize you are nothing. Nothing. The whole of us in this
room are nothing. The whole of us in Oakland, in
Hayward, San Francisco, the Bay Area, we are collectively nothing. The whole of the world, every
human being in it, all 7.8 billion of us, according to God, when
we raise our fist against him, God says, you're nothing. You're
less than a drop of water on the bottom, not the side, on
the bottom of a bucket. This speaks to the enormity the
enormity, the enormity and transcendent nature of a holy God who knows
man's pants are too big for his britches. And Nebuchadnezzar
had to learn that. Think about this. Think about
when a man has all this power. Power corrupts. Does it corrupt? Power corrupts. You get a $5
raise and you go crazy. But it corrupts. It corrupts.
Does it corrupt? So stay with me. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts what?
Absolutely. And that's an axiom. It takes
grace for you and I to operate in authority without letting
it go to our head and thinking we're something that we're not
and getting out of our lane. And generally what God has to
do to make sure you stay in your lane, it beats you down. Which
is what he did to Nebuchadnezzar for seven years. He made him
grubble in the dirt. He lost his mind. He became insane
for seven years, that he might know that the Lord God of heaven
and earth rules in the kingdoms of men and does whatever he wants.
Again, the statement brings with it a lot of challenges for you
and me, because life is a mess down here. But are we going to
throw God away because God allows, God ordains, God purposes evil?
Are we? Of course, we're not of course
we're not and we're not going to do it because once you and
I understand that god is sovereign We'd rather have a sovereign
god dictate our life Than for our life to be left up to chance
Secondly this same sovereign god who not only quickly lets
you know That he controls everything. Are you ready? Here it goes.
Here it goes He does what he does for his glory and our good
And when you discover that God does what he does for your good,
you have a premise for trusting him. All things work together
for good to them that love God, to them that are called according
to his purpose. Is that right? All things work together. And
so everything is working after the counsel of his own will in
order to bring you and me to a place where we know God. So watch this if we actually
believe in the sovereignty of god the decreed of will of god
We will recognize and begin to interpret our circumstances as
being designed to bring us closer to god I need to go on because
these things are so critical for you to understand But I only
got a few more minutes mark then as we work through our first
point Not only is the preceptive will of god important to know
your bible Nothing else matters child of god in terms of authority
and truth if you don't believe the bible If you and I do not
believe that the bible is the word of god the verbal plenary
inspiration of scripture That it is inerrant and infallible.
You're going to hear me talk about it next week as I ordain
two men We must believe that god gave the word and great was
the company that published it and that this word is infallible
Are you hearing what i'm saying? And from it we get the revelation
of who god is and what god does and it gives us the basis to
walk in authority God is sovereign And he brings trouble in my life.
But he has told me because I know him that the trouble I'm bringing
in your life is to make you better and not bitter and to bring you
closer and not farther. I need you to trust me while
I take you through this hell, because on the other side of
this hell, you're going to see my glory and you're going to
know me in a better way than you know me now. Am I telling
the truth? Am I telling the truth? See,
so a lot of times even the believer does not know how to go through
trouble because they don't know how to retain the sovereignty
of God and his good pleasure for them together. Why am I going
through all this? Why am I going through all this?
Why? So that you can learn the good and perfect and acceptable
will of God. which is where we're getting
ready to go right now. This is where we're getting ready to
go, because it's very important to know. So we move from the
decreed will of God to what I call the mandated or imperative will
of God. Do you guys see that? The mandated
or imperative will of God now comes home closer to you and
me in proximity. Here's what I mean. Not only
has God objectively allowed us to see through the Bible what
he's doing, not only has he told us, don't worry about what I'm
doing, I'm in control of it all, But here's what I want you to
do. This is called the mandate of will of God. We don't like
this either. But it's important to know that
you're not going to have a relationship with God without God telling
you what to do. This is not going to happen.
I'm going to bear this out with four examples in a minute. What
is the mandate of will of God? Whatever God commands you and
I to do is the mandate of will of God. Every imperative in the
scripture is God's mandate. All right, let me just start
with Adam and Eve. God created the heavens and the
earth. He created a garden. He put man in it. Did God give
Adam and Eve a mandate? Be fruitful, multiply, replenish
the earth, subdue it. Is that a mandate? You know what
that means? If you violate that, you are in trouble with God.
Is that true? Here's another mandate. Watch this. All of the
trees of the garden you can freely eat, but there's one tree. Do
what? Leave it alone. That's a mandate. If you violate
that mandate, there are what? Consequences. So the mandate
of the will of God runs all the way through the scriptures. Are
you hearing me? Exodus chapter 20 with God's second Adam son
the first Adam son the type of Christ is in the garden The second
Adam son is national Israel. What does he tell them when he
brings them out of Egypt? He says obey the commandments
of the Lord. So what did he give them ten
commandments? I'm the Lord your God I brought you out of Egypt
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not bow
down unto any God to make an image of God of anything in heaven
or in the earth or in the sea or under the earth. I am the
Lord your God. You shall obey your mother and
your father. You shall not steal. You shall
honor the Sabbath day. Many imperatives in that Decalogue. Is that true? This is what we
call the imperative will of God. And it's the will of God in proximity
that's designed for you and I to obey. Are you following me? To
obey. In other words, you know when
you ask the question, what is God's will for me? That's it.
Now isn't this funny? Watch this. Isn't it funny? We
go, I don't know what God wants me to do. Right? I don't know what he wants me
to do. What he wants you to do is love him with all your heart,
soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. What
he wants you to do is not commit idolatry. What he wants you to
do is not be covetous. What he wants you to do is love
your neighbor as yourself. What he wants you to do is stop
committing adultery and fornication and all of those things that
are contrary to the will of God. Ah, I just brought you into another
conundrum. You know what that is? There
are things that are contrary to God's will that God explicitly
says are not my will for you. Yet God is sovereign over all
things so that there's an aspect of God's will that wills everything,
even the things that he does not will. Did you catch it? Did you catch it? Did you catch
it? So now watch this. These are
paradoxes again. Stay with me. This is important. And what we
try to do when we try to save God from contradiction, did you
get that? Is we rearrange the terminology. Here's what we do. Well, no,
don't say that God's will contradicts God's will, say that God's will
contradict God's desire. Ready? It's the same thing. It's
the same thing. If God says, don't steal, that's
God's will for you not to steal in the mandate of an imperative
sense. But if God says in the day that you steal, I'm going
to kill you, it means in his sovereign decree, he knows you're
going to steal. Did you get that? So go back with me to Genesis
chapter 3. Trying to teach y'all something today. Told you we're
in class today. So God told Adam and Eve, not if, but when. In the day you eat it, I'm going
to kill you. Isn't that what he said? Now,
in his sovereign decree, did he know they were going to eat
it? Why? Because he willed it. Because
nothing would happen if he didn't will it. even though for you
it is not His will imperatively. Y'all with me? Who did I lose? If I lost you,
get the CD. Because I know these people don't
want me here two hours. But will you hear me? You cannot understand
your Bible in the area of God's will until these categories are
delineated. You will be on the side of the
agnostic or the atheist to argue against God that He contradicts
Himself when He never does. All right, when he never does.
Yes, we struggle with it. Yes, we struggle with it. But
if you believe that the end game has an outcome that's better
than the process for you, then you'll learn how to get through
the trouble because the trouble is just part of the seasoning
and the gumbo of faith in your life so that you learn how to
enjoy God when you're going through trouble. I love this. Acts chapter 2 verse
38. Acts chapter 2 verse 38 is an
imperative. This is what the apostle Peter says in Acts chapter
2 verse 38 with reference to an imperative. This is what we
call the New Testament imperatives relative to the will of God.
He's at Pentecost. He's preaching to his brethren.
And you know, you know this language. This is Peter calling them to
repentance. Acts chapter 2 verse 38. Then
Peter said unto them, do what? That's the imperative. And be
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost for the promises unto you, your children, and
unto all that are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall
call. Right? But why is that blessing there?
Because the Bible tells us that the wickedness of the rulers
put to death our Lord Jesus Christ. which became an atonement for
our sin by the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of
God. Now, it was sin to kill Jesus. Who's going to argue with
that? But the Father decreed it. There's
the juxtaposition of the sovereignty of God's decree and the imperative
will that he places on man. He knows you're gonna do it.
He's purpose you doing it, but he tells you don't. Why pastor? To drive you to a need for Christ. To show you that I, you and I
are, listen, as we learned it last week, we are incurable sinners. Incurable. We love jumping the
fence. Incurable. Now, again, this is
the paradoxical nature of the atonement. Man's will was contrary
to God's imperative will, but it was working out exactly according
to his sovereign decree. Y'all following me so far? And
you cannot miss this. You cannot miss this, because
this works in our life. I'm almost ready to go to my
examples, because my examples are so clear. Adam and Eve, but
I have to actually work through a few more points. Adam and Eve
figured that out. They figured out that you can't disobey daddy
because daddy's always right But the moment you disobey daddy
daddy's gonna take you through a whole nother journey and you're
gonna go deeper with god Is that true? Did joseph learn that? Let me go on to my third point
before our third and third point before I deal with this Not only
do we have what we call the precept of will of god or scripture to
speak to us if we listen Not only do we have the decreed of
will of God that declares the true nature and character of
God is sovereign over both the good and the what evil Not only
do we have mandates and imperatives to obey God's Word for thus for
us who are sinners It's repentance and faith in Christ That is his
mandate of will for us the man or the woman that does not believe
the gospel Cannot and will not do the will of God and they will
perish That's Matthew 7 21. Are you hearing me? That's Matthew
7 21 But here's an area that I want you to grasp and then
I'm gonna quickly develop some examples and shut it down. There
is what we call in the Bible what? The secret will of God. You believe that? So the Bible
says in Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 29 part 8, the secret things
belong unto our God. What does that mean pastor? God
is not like you and me We open our mouth and we say everything.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that God does not tell us. Is
that true? In fact, there is an infinitude.
An inexhaustible resource, an abyss, small words of God's wisdom
and purpose and counsel that we do not know. For our good. See, when you're a good parent,
a good leader, You don't tell everybody everything Because
on some occasions they can't handle it It's not the right
time for everything And for some people they can't ever handle
it You don't ever tell them because they can never handle it and
if you love them you won't And when you are a child of the living
god You are a theologian second And you are a son first And what
that means is you listen to father when he tells you, I'm not telling
you everything. So don't come arguing with me
because I don't tell you everything. I'm not your teacher. I'm your
daddy. I like that. You know, you didn't get it there.
I like that. I'm not your teacher. I'm your daddy. I'm your daddy
first in I'm your teacher second. I'm the one that brought you
into existence I'm the one that provides for you cares for you
nurtures you protects you and I have not one time told you
anything wrong Will you just trust me as father? Because your
your gray matter is not thick enough to handle my plans Until
you grow and mature into them. Is that true until you grow and
mature into them. You gotta trust father You know
what? We call that walking by Faith is the substance of things.
Hope for the evidence of things. What? The substance of things. Hope for the evidence of things.
What? Not seen. Not seen. I gotta be able to
trust my daddy when I don't know. Brother Job. Did he wait on god? Did he wait
on god? The lord gives, the lord takes
away. No, we're not done. Blessed be
the name of the lord. Did he worship? Did he worship?
Stay with me. And Brother Job didn't know nothing
about what was going on. All he knew was that evil had
tore his house up. That's all he knew. Evil had
tore his house up. Now you and I would be the blaming
God or blaming somebody. Is that true? We would be blaming
God or blaming somebody until we know that God is sovereign.
Until we know that God always means good for us. Until we know
that our latter end is going to always be better than our
former end. which requires faith and submission to God. Until
we know that when God tells us to act a certain way in the midst
of our troubles, that if we follow that pattern, it's going to work
out all right. Are you following with me so far? This is very
important for you to get. The secret things belong unto
the Lord our God. Some of us learned that, like
I was talking about this morning, and not in Sunday school, but
in my commentary, 20 years ago, 22 years ago, somebody thought
they knew when the Lord was coming. Right? That's what we do. We push through. We push through. I told you we love to kick the
gate open. We want to be the first one to let people know
what daddy let me in on the secret. Daddy did not let you in on the
secret. So the day came and the date
went because the secret things belong unto the Lord. Am I telling
the truth? That's Matthew's gospel chapter
24. No man knows the day or the hour Not the angels in heaven
only the son of man knows now because he's in glory The father
has left those things in the hand of the triune God to dispense
when he wills And we don't tell God God it ain't fair. I want
to know I'm a good mathematician You're not a good enough one
Because no good thing would God withhold from them that fear
him and love him. You know your Bibles. I Would he withhold it
if it meant something for you? But you know we withhold things
from people that we care about, don't we? Y'all are following
me, right? See, and when you got that kind of structure to
the will of God in place, the precept of will of God, the sovereign
decree of will of God, the mandate of will of God, and the secret
will of God, what kind of life must we live in order to be successful
in this world? A life of faith, trusting God.
Did anybody follow that logic? It's a life of faith, trusting
God. Do you know how many people ruin themselves trying to figure
out things intellectually and rationally where God has not
allowed them to enter into the insight And it happens to us
too when we fail to understand these categories. Am I making
some sense to you guys? It's very important for you to
get this. The secret things belong unto the Lord. Romans 11 verse
34. Romans 11 verse 34 underscores
this as well for you and me to work through. As we go there,
here's what you are understanding if you are tracking with me,
if you're not distracted by something else. Here's what you are understanding. We have to be very humble when
it comes to the will of God. We have to be very, very, very,
very humble when it comes to the will of God. We have to be
humble. Matthews 18, one through four
as a little child, we have to let process take place. I should
turn this one into a second message because where I'm at now is really
the issue. You know how our kids act like
they want to be grown. way before they get grown. Do
you know why that's the case? Because they hate the prospect
of the process. You did it, I did it. We do it
in the faith too. Can I share something with you?
Just because you know a lot about the Bible doesn't make you mature. Intellectual propositional knowledge
of the scriptures is not the same as experiential knowledge
of the word of God. You guys hear what I just stated?
Otherwise, you would simply be ideologues on an intellectual
level whose heads are so swollen that you can have a badge to
tell everybody how mature you are because you passed all these
classes. But every believer has to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord, starting with milk and then getting to meat. And
that takes many years. Many years now. Now watch where
I'm going with this. It takes many years. And so Romans
chapter 12 verse 1 and 2 teaches us how the process goes. But
stop right here. Stay right there. For who had known the mind of
the Lord? Did you? No. Or who has been his counselor? Were you? No. Nobody was with
God when God began to think. And nobody is sitting at God's
elbow now while he's thinking. Are you guys with me? So stay
with me now for a few more minutes. So be careful when you tell people
what the will of God is outside of the mandated will of God that's
explicitly laid out in scripture. Don't tell people that it's God's
will for you to marry this person. Get this job. Leave this place. Go over here. Do that. Are you
guys following me? Don't tell people that because
That is reserved for God himself to work through the process of
their growth and maturity. Because more important to God
than you knowing it is you knowing him. And that only comes through
maturity. Romans chapter 12, verse one
and two. I'm gonna make this a two part
series. I'm gonna jump over it next week because of our, of
our installation service, and then I'm going to come back to
the will of God. Can I do that? Because there's some things about it
that we just need to know. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a what? Holy
and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Verse
one is one of the texts we're going to be preaching up in the
conference in Sacramento. We would love for many of you
to come join us and encourage those brothers in Sacramento
as we preach. So hopefully we'll have a sign-up sheet next week
so we can know the scale of the brothers and sisters here at
Grace that will join us in the Sacramento conference. I hope
you come. They will enjoy your encouragement being there. Um,
great things are happening with those brothers and sisters, but
we are the mother church for them and they would love to see
us there as we preach for two days. Verse one says, you got
to give it all to God. Verse one says, you got to give
it all to God, your whole being. Isn't that what it said? And
then you know what else to say? It's only, it's only logical.
That's a Greek term. It's only logical. It's only
logical. So those of us who are playing
halfway with God Here's what's gonna happen. You're not gonna
know verse 2 verse 2 and Be not conformed to this world. You
know what we call that process. I Got I can't I can't deal with
it right now I'm what I'm saying to you is when God saves us we
got a whole bunch of old stuff in our database that got to go
and Now some of us are kind of dumb and so it only takes a little
while to get all that old stuff out. But some of us are highfalutin
sinners. You have never heard that term
before. Highfalutin sinners. And we got stacks and stacks
and stacks of files of corrupt and vile thoughts and actions
that have to be deleted. You know how you delete all those
old files and you tell your computer, smoke coming out of your computer
because you're trying to delete all the files. That's a part
of your transformation. File deletion. File deletion. File deletion to make space for
new files that come from heaven. that sound like Christ, that
look like Christ, that begin to transform you into his likeness
and causes you to think God's thoughts after him and to love
what God loves and want what God wants. This is a whole lifetime
deletion and addition. Am I making some sense? I'm making
some sense and it's good to know be not conformed to this world
But transformed by the renewing of your mind in order that here
it is You may prove test and affirm that which is good and
acceptable and perfect in the will of God This is the one that
will beat you up I'm gonna talk for a few more
minutes because we've got one more Category of the will of
God to look at it and we call it the what the redemptive will
of God Is that right? Do you see it? It's called the
redemptive will of God. These categories are necessary. It's
very important. And I'll get there, but let me
say this. When Joseph, at 17 years old, was told that he was
going to be the head over the whole of his family, it was given
to him in what we would call now preceptive form. It was given
to him by revelation, right? It's written down now, right? And what we mean by precept is
that is God's word that was declared to him. He ran with that. But guess what he had to also
enter into? The decree of will of God. You know what that means?
When he ran to daddy and mama, he said, mama, mama, daddy, I'm
going to rule over y'all. I had two dreams. I'm going to
rule over you. Remember that? That's the scriptures
were coming to him. And then all of a sudden, the
sovereign decree of God says, let your brothers hate you. throw
you into a pit, send you down the river, make you a slave,
get you in trouble, throw you in prison, and then put you on
high. See, he didn't know the sovereign
will of God. He just knew the preceptive will.
Are y'all following me? The sovereign will of God took
place over time. By the time he got to the throne,
he was 37 years old. from 17 to 37. How many years
is that? That's a long time to grow and
mature in Christ. That's right. He was 37 years
old, 30 years old, 30 years old. And by the time we get to his
parents, he's 37 because of the famine. He gets to the throne
at 30. So from 1730, he's dealing with
a number of years of imprisonment, out of imprisonment, slavery,
the kind of stuff that if you're not a child of God, you run in
the other direction. Am I telling the truth? The kind
of stuff that if you're not a child of God, you run the other. If
some of y'all tell me if Joseph knew that to get to the throne,
he had to go through what he went through. What would he have
said? Lord, let somebody else do this. Right. So so when God saves you, when
he saves you, he tells you that he's going to keep you and get
you to glory. But you're going to have trouble.
Is that true? You're gonna have trouble. And
sometimes we act like we didn't hear it. But the Father gave
us the knowledge of his precepts, his sovereignty, and he also
gave us his mandate. This gets us into the redemptive
will of God. I'm gonna just touch on it, then I'll come back later.
Joseph believed God, didn't he? And because he believed God,
the redemptive will of God worked itself out for Joseph in his
life, right? Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful concept.
So we get down to the redemptive will of God. I'm just going to
express it. I'm not going to fully develop it. I'll come back
later and touch on the will of God for you down the line. What
do we mean by the redemptive will of God? Here it is. The
redemptive will of God is the will of God in terms of his precepts,
in terms of his mandates and imperatives relative to mankind,
the will of God, in terms of his precepts and his mandates
relative to mankind that he places in the person of his son, Jesus
Christ. Makes Christ responsible for the mandate and the imperatives. Makes Christ responsible for
the precept. Because see, once we know what
God says, we have to concur with it. There's only one man in the
universe who concurs with God. And there's only one man in the
universe who obeyed everything that God said. Is that right?
That man is the Lord Jesus. Now, even before he came, you
know what he says? I delight to do thy will, O my
God. And once he came, what did he
continue saying? I came to do the will of him that sent me.
And to finish his work. And then he ultimately said what?
I have finished the work that you have given me to do. And
redemptively what that teaches is that everything that you and
I were supposed to do, that we jacked up and keep jacking up,
Christ fulfilled. Because in the redemptive will
of God, God made sure that his law was honored. And because
he values relationship, his people are saved. Christ exalted God's
law and he made it honorable. and you and I are experiencing
personally as true believers, the redemptive will of God. Am
I making some sense? How comforting is the redemptive
will of God? Listen to what the scripture
says in Jeremiah chapter 32, verse 39 and 40. Jeremiah 32,
39 and 40. This is the last verse. Think
about this in light of what I have just described to you as the
redemptive will of God. What is that will of God? That
will of God is that which God Himself has determined in purpose
and decreed by which He takes the precept of will of God, the
mandate of will of God, and place them in His Son who becomes our
representative by which all that we were supposed to do, He did
for us. I'm at verse 39 of Jeremiah 32. Are you there? And I will give
them one heart. What do we mean? A new nature.
And I will give them one way. What do we mean? Christ alone. Who's doing that? God, the father.
I will give them one heart. I will give them one way that
they may what? Fear me forever. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. Do you see it? Watch this. God
has decreed and purpose. And because Christ has died for
me and has given me eternal life, I will always fear my God. Will always reverence him. I
will always hold him in awe because he's giving me a new nature Has
he given you a new nature now watch this now and do you believe
that Jesus Christ is the only way truth in life? Do you believe
that right? And do you believe that God is
able to keep you and present you faultless before the presence
of his glory Do you believe that do you believe that he who has
begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus
Christ Do you believe that God is able to make all grace abound?
I See and when you're doing that you are embracing and enjoying
the redemptive will of God now watch this in closing This is why we admit that we
are hell-bound sinners by nature I'm getting ready close it right
here This is why we tell people we
are simultaneously righteous and sinful at the same time Are
you ready? Because every day we are both
out of the will of God and in it at the same time. Go ahead
on. Go ahead on. Did y'all get that? I'm always in it in Christ. I'm
always in it in my new nature. My new nature tells me that I
cannot see it, but I'm always out of it in my own nature. I'm
always out of it in myself. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I don't find. I don't
love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, neither do
you. I don't do what I ought to as I ought to, neither do
you. I don't love my neighbor as myself, neither do you. But
in Christ, I always do. In Christ, I always do. Christ
I always do now watch this pastor. Why are you pressing at home?
Because the gospel is going to tell you and me to stop boasting
about anything in ourselves To love God and love one another
because what do you have that was not given to you? Don't raise
your head up higher than any other brother or sister in Christ
because we're all the same. We're wretched hell-bound sinners
and except for the mercy and goodness of God that snatched
us out of hell and brought us into the kingdom of God. Only
by his mercy, only by his goodness, only by his kindness has he saved
us. Has he saved us? Only by his
goodness, only by his kindness, only. So now you want to know
what that will of God is that's going to get your soul to heaven?
You just heard it. Amen. Amen.