Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Niver. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nibbert. In Ephesians chapter 5, verse
17, Paul says, wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is. I've entitled this message, Understanding
the Will of the Lord, or understanding God?s will. Not knowing God?s
will, but understanding God?s will. Now, generally when people
think of God?s will, they think of God?s will for my life. what
his plan, what his purpose is in my life. And I've even heard
preachers say, God's got a wonderful plan for you. And that is not
scriptural. That kind of thinking, you don't
read things like that in the Bible. Whatever God purposes
for you will take place. There's no such thing as missing
out on God's will. God's will always takes place. So I hope we can get that kind
of thinking out of our mind. What is God's will for my life
and your life? Whatever's taken place up to
this point, you're up to your neck in it. God is in control. What about after today? Well,
everything that happens between now and your death will be God's
will in your life. I hope you'll understand this
by the end of this message. I hope I understand it. Paul
said, be not unwise. The word is generally translated
foolish, without reason, without mental sanity or sobriety. a lack of common sense, no perception
of the reality of things. Be not unwise, but be understanding
what the will of the Lord is. Now, I can understand somebody
thinking like this, well, how in the world can I know God's
will? I'm so finite, I'm so little in the grand scheme of things,
how can I claim to have some understanding of the will of
God? That seems transcendent, above
our ability. Well, I understand someone thinking
that way, but there's something called the Bible. God has written
this book. It's inspired by God. Now, The only way we can know
His will is because He has revealed His will in His Word. This is not my guess or my thought
or my stab at trying to figure out what God's will is. God has
made His will known in His Word. I love Deuteronomy 29, 29. Moses
says, But the secret things belong
to the Lord. Now, what are the secret things?
The things we don't know. They belong to the Lord. He knows.
But the things that are revealed belong to us and our children
that we might do all the words of this law. God has made His
will known in this book we call the Bible. The Bible claims inspiration. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Every word. And I have no doubt
that it is God's Word. And there's no way we could know
anything true regarding the will of God unless He's pleased to
make it known. And He has made His will known
in His Word. There is such a thing as the
will of God. God is a person. God has a consciousness. God has a will. God has an intent. God has a purpose, the will of
God. Now, the first thing I would
like to say with regard to God's will is it is consistent with
all of his other attributes. Now God has made known his attributes,
his characteristics in his word. This is how we can know what
God is like from what he has revealed himself to be in his
word. For instance, God is eternal. He never had a beginning. God's will is eternal. It's what he has always willed.
God is sovereign. That means He is the cause, the
first cause of all things. And you can't take that too far.
God is absolutely sovereign. That means He does what He wills
to do all the time. God is immutable. He cannot change. Malachi 3, 6, I am the Lord,
I change not. Hebrews 13, 8 says Jesus Christ
the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He is immutable. His
will does not change. What His will was, His will is. What His will is, His will always
will be. This is in line with the character
of God. God is all-powerful. He has the
power to always make His will come to pass. God is omniscient. He knows everything. He's never
surprised. He never responds to anything.
He knows all, and that's why His will is always done. God is omnipresent. That means
He's everywhere at once. He's a spirit. He is the spirit. He is not bound by time and space
the way you and I are. There's nowhere where He's not
where He can't make sure His will takes place. God is independent. That means he has no needs. He
doesn't need me or you to fulfill something missing in him. He's
utterly independent. He has life in himself. What
he wills is simply what he wills. Now, before I go on anymore with
this thing about God's will, I want us to realize that there
is no such thing as free will in God or men. People talk about free will all
the time, but you won't find that taught in the Scripture.
Your will is controlled by your nature. God doesn't have a free
will in the sense that he can't decide to sin. Scripture says
he can't lie. He can't do evil. His will is controlled by his
nature. And man's will is controlled
by his nature. We're born into this world with
a sinful nature, with an evil nature. And therefore, the very
idea of free will is absurd. That doesn't mean we don't do
what we want to do. God does what He wants to do.
And when you and I sin, we're doing what we want to do. But
to speak of free will is really to speak of an absurdity. There's
no such thing. Now, be not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is. To understand God's will, We
have to understand His will of command and His will of purpose
or decree. His will of command and His will
of purpose or decree. Now, God's will of command is
always broken. God's will of decree and purpose
is never broken. Now, God's will command is expressed
in the Ten Commandments. Not to have any God before God,
not to make any idols, false ideas and imaginations or figures
of God, no religious symbolism and images and idols, or not
to take his name in vain. That's his will. Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your mother and father.
That's God's will. Don't kill, that's God's will. Don't steal,
that's God's will. Do not commit adultery, that's
God's will. Do not lie. That's God's will. Do not covet.
That's God's will. That's God's will of command.
And everybody in this world is born with that light in their
conscious. They know it's wrong to lie.
Everybody knows it's wrong to murder. Everyone knows it's wrong
to steal. Everyone knows sexual sin is
wrong. You can't say, well, it's God's
will for me to do this. No, it's not. God's will of command. Now, every time we sin, We break
His will of command, and that means we break His will of command
all the time, because there's never a time without sin. I always
have a sinful nature, and if I do it, it's sin. I don't care
if I'm praying or reading the Bible, whatever it might be,
if I do it, because of who did it, it's sin. That's what the
scripture says. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
If we say we've not sinned, we make Him a liar. That's true
all the time. Now, When I break God's command,
it is all my fault. I can't say, well, God let me
do it. That's what Adam did in the garden.
When God said, Adam, where are you and what have you done? He
said, well, the woman that you gave me, she gave me of the fruit
and I did eat. Now he's blaming his sin on God.
If you wouldn't have given me that woman, this would have never
happened. May the Lord give us grace to
take personal responsibility for our sin. You see, only when
my sin is all my fault. I can't blame my mom and dad.
I can't blame my circumstances. I can't blame my environment.
I can't blame God. All my sin, every commandment
I've broken of God, All my sin is all my fault. And it's not until you're brought
and I'm brought to see that my sin's all my fault that I cry
for mercy. If I don't see that my sin's
all my fault, if it's somebody else's fault, what I need is
justice, not mercy. But if my sin is all my fault
before God, what I need is mercy. Now, there's only one person
who has ever kept the will of command of God, and that's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He never sinned. He said, I do
always those things that please the Father. He never disobeyed
His Father. He kept every commandment perfectly. Somebody says, well, I try to
do my best to keep the commandments of God. You know, when you say
something like that, that's not even true. You do not. If you
did, you wouldn't sin, but that's not the case. Somebody says,
I try to do my best. I try to keep the law. The only
obedience the law knows is perfect obedience, not trying your best. That's no good. The only one
who ever kept God's law is the Lord Jesus Christ and everybody
in him. I love it when he said to John
the Baptist, thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. You see, when Christ fulfilled
all righteousness, he did it as an us. He did it as a representative
for everybody in him, everybody he represents, everybody who
trusts him only as their righteousness before God. Every believer has
a perfect account before God, the account of Christ. Now, that's
God's will of command. He commands me to not lie, not
steal, not kill, and so on. That's God's will of command.
And then there is God's will of decree. And that covers everything
that happens in time without exception. God's will of decree. Everything that happens in time,
He purposed in eternity. He is completely sovereign over
the free and uncoerced actions of every human being. He's in
control of it. Everything that everybody does,
He is sovereign over. His will is always done. Nebuchadnezzar
said it like this in Daniel 4, verse 35, He doeth according
to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What
doest thou? His will is always done. Why did the fall of Adam take
place? was God's purpose. He said before it took place,
in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die. It was God's
will for that to take place. Somebody says, well, you're making
God the author of evil. I'm not doing any such thing.
I'm saying God is God. He's in control of everything.
What about the cross? Peter said, Him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The reason
that he was delivered to the cross was because of the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And then he went on to say,
you have taken and with wicked hands have crucified and slain. There we see God's absolute sovereignty
over this and man's responsibility. I think of what the early church
said in Acts chapter 4. And these were new believers,
people who hadn't been believers for a few weeks, but they knew
who God was. You see, when you know God, your doctrine is right. When you don't know Him, your
doctrine is wrong. But these people knew God. And
they said, For the truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
has anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." I love this
concerning God. He's in control. I love that
passage of Scripture where He says He has mercy on whom He
will have mercy and whom He will He hardens. And the response
is, well, why does he yet find fault for who hath resisted his
will? That's the case. If he has mercy on whom he will,
and whom he will, he hardens. If he hardened my heart, how
can he hold me responsible for my sin, if he hardened my heart?
And I love Paul's response, name it, O man. Who are you to reply
against God? Since when do you have the moral
authority to stand in judgment over God and say, I don't agree
with what He's doing? You have no place, I have no
place for any such thinking. God is God. In Ephesians chapter
1, we read, Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will."
Everything He does, He does according to the good pleasure of His will. Verse 9 says, "...having made
known to us the mystery of His will." according to His good
pleasure, which He purposed in Himself." We read in verse 11,
"...in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him, who works all things after the
counsel of His own will." Now, this is who He is. His will is
absolute. It's always done. It's eternal.
We read in Ephesians 3.11 of the eternal purpose, which He
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's immutable. God's not
a man that He should repent. It's not going to change. It's
efficacious. His will can't be thwarted. I love what David said. He said, Our God is in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. Not He will do or can
do, but He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased all the time.
You see, God's will doesn't have to have contingency plans or
conditions that first must be met before His will can take
place. God's will is causeless. There's no reason for it outside
of Himself, His own free and sovereign will. He said, I'll
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Oh, I love to think of
the supremacy of the will of God. Oh, don't be unwise, but
understanding what the will of God is. Now, the supremacy of
God's will is seen in these three things, creation, providence,
and salvation. Now, in creation, God created
the universe by an act of His will. There was a time when there
was no time, and God was all there was. and God willed the
universe into existence. Creation came into existence
as a result of His will. That's how supreme His will was.
He didn't consult with me or you about it, did He? We weren't
around. He simply willed the creation into existence. Revelation
4.11 says, Thou hast created all things
for thyself and for thy pleasure. They are and were created." God
is the creator. Atheism is irrational and unreasonable. Someone had to make all this,
and nobody made him. The supremacy of His will is
seen in providence. Everything that happens in time
was decreed by God in eternity, and there is no exceptions to
that. Somebody says that's fatalism.
No, it's not fatalism. It's who God is. God really is
God. He controls everything and every
event and everybody. Listen to this passage of scripture
from Isaiah chapter 46. Beginning in verse 9, remember
the former things of old, for I am God and there's none else.
I am God and there's none like me. Declaring the end from the
beginning. From ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand. I will
do all my pleasure. Calling a ravenous bird from
the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country.
Yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass, I have
purposed it, I will also do it." The lot is cast into the lap,
Proverbs 16, 33, and we think of that as chance, luck, happenstance. but the whole disposing thereof
is of the Lord." How we love Romans 8, 28, and we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. All things. God is in control of everything. Everything that happens in time
he is in control of, and he's bringing his purpose to pass.
Now, we might not see what he's doing. You remember Joseph? He didn't know why he was thrown
into prison. He didn't know why his brothers
betrayed him. He didn't know why the woman made that false
accusation against him, but he Went on to tell his brothers
when they find out who he is, he said, you meant it for evil
what you were doing. You meant it for evil, but God
meant it for good. And that's true concerning everything.
God brings good out of evil all the time. Thou hast made all
things for thyself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. But the supremacy of his will
is most especially seen in salvation. Now, here's where men chafe. They'll say, well, I can see
God as creator, and it's only logical to think that he's in
control of everything if he's God. But here's where men chafe,
is that God's will is supreme in salvation. Now, what that
means is, mine, your salvation is up to
him. It's not up to me or you. We
don't have any control in this. Salvation is according to His
will, not according to our will. according to His will, by the
which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all." Now, the reason men chafe at
this is because they've been hearing all their life that God
loves everybody and wants to save everybody, and Christ died
for everybody and wants to save everybody, and God loves everybody,
and God wills the salvation of all men without exception, God
the Holy Spirit's calling everybody. That's what men have heard, but
you can't get that from the Scripture. That is not what the Bible teaches.
I repeat, that is not what the Bible teaches. And if somebody
believes that God wills the salvation of all men, and yet some of those
men are not saved, that means God's will is not what saves
them. It means something they do. It's
the teaching of salvation by works. If somebody believes that
Jesus Christ paid for everybody's sins, but some of those people
he died for may not be saved, they say his death doesn't save.
It has to be something you do. That's a message of salvation
by works. And to hear that salvation is altogether up to him. Listen
to this scripture. The Lord said, I came down from
heaven not to do my own will. But the will of Him that sent
me, and this is the Father's will which has sent me, that
of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing. But raise
it up again at the last day. As John 5.21, as the Father raises
the dead and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. James 1.18, of His own will,
beget He us through the word of truth. Scripture says, it's
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that shows mercy. He has mercy on whom he will
have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens. Now, how does this
affect me personally? How does this affect you personally?
To see that God's will is supreme in control of everything. Well,
totally dependent on whether you love this or hate it. Somebody
says, well, I'm indifferent about it. Well, you're a fool if you're
indifferent about it. That's all I can say to you. You're
a fool. But if you hate this, it's because you hate God, and
you hate the God that I'm describing, and you don't see any safety
in this God. You think that there's no safety
in salvation being according to His will. But you love this. You love this if you really believe
that you're so sinful in and of yourself that you can't do
anything to save yourself and your salvation is completely
and totally dependent upon his will. You understand what the
leper meant when he came into the presence of Christ and he
fell down and worshiped him saying, Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. Have you ever prayed that prayer?
Have you ever been made to see that you can't make yourself
clean? You can't will your salvation. I know preachers have presented
for the last century anyway, like, God wants to forgive you. Christ wants to forgive you.
You gotta let him. That's foolishness. That's foolishness. You don't come into his presence
and say, I'm gonna let you forgive me. Why that's offensive to even
think in that term. You come like the leper did.
Lord, he was full of leprosy, full of sin. Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. Do you know anybody that's ever
came into the Lord's presence with that prayer has heard the
same thing the leper did? The Lord was moved with compassion,
the scripture says, and He said, I will be thou clean. Now, the only way you will be
saved is if God wills it. I hope you can get a hold of
that. If you see your own sinfulness, you see that. So if you see your
own sinfulness and how you can't will your salvation and how you
can't make yourself be saved and your salvation's totally
in his hand, his sovereign hand, come to him like the leper did. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. And what a blessing it is to
be able to say from our hearts, thy will be done. What a blessing it is to say
from our hearts, if the Lord will, we'll do this, or we'll
do that. What a blessing it is when the
Lord enables us to submit to His will and think it's best.
The will of the Lord be done. I think of that scripture in
1 Thessalonians 5, 18, where Paul said, and everything give
thanks, no matter what it is. And everything gives thanks.
For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
Whatever's going on with you, that's the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. He's in absolute sovereign control
of it. Give thanks. I'm so thankful
for the supremacy of His will. That gives a sinner like me hope.
I come into God's presence. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. And he says, I will be thou clean. Now we have this
message on DVD and CD. If you write the church, call
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper praying that
God will be pleased to make himself known to you. To receive a copy
of the sermon you have just heard, send a request to todd.kniper
at gmail.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.