We're gonna be in the book of
Hebrews again. If you would like to turn Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. We believe and know that God
is sovereign. God is sovereign. He is the Monarch
of heaven and earth. He is the king of kings and the
Lord of lords. He has absolute power We have
no power. He has absolute power. He has
all power. There's none left over for you and I it's not that
he has 99% of it you and I have 1% he has all power all powers
what the Lord said Jesus Christ said it all power is given unto
me of my father and Told Pilate, he said, you have no power at
all except to be given to my father. You don't have any power,
Pilate, unless my father gives it to you. Because he has all
of it, that's the point, isn't it? He has all of it. We are powerless when it comes
to spiritual things. He's the alpha and he's the omega
of our salvation. He's the beginning and the end
of it. And if he's not, we have no salvation because we're powerless
in spiritual things. The deception that happens in
false religion is that men think they can do something in the
flesh that actually will create a spiritual outcome, and that's
not possible. Only Christ is the one that ever
did that. You and I can't do that. They that are in the flesh
cannot please God. The flesh is enmity against God. The Lord is the one that's gotta
do all the work, doesn't he? He's got to do all the work.
All things were made by him, John chapter one tells us, and
without him there was not anything made that was made. In him is
life, without him there is no life. All things, without exception,
all things exist according to his purpose. Everything is for
his glory. And it's all according to his
infinite, eternal will. In this hour I want us to ask
this question, what is, God's will. What is the will of God? What is the will of God? Let's
read our text here. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 5 through
10. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he said, sacrifice and offerings thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared me in burn offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast no pleasure. Then said, I 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 offering and burn offering and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadst thou pleasure therein, which are offered by
the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second, by the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Our title is, What is God's Will?
Christ came, he said, I come to do thy will, O Lord. And by
that which will, the sacrifice of himself is how his people
have been justified, how they've been sanctified, how they've
been glorified. Men will say that God loves everybody and
that Jesus died for everybody, which is a lie, we know that.
Because it devalues the work of Calvary, it devalues that
Christ was actually successful, that he actually did something
on the cross of Calvary. It was not just an attempt, it
was not an offering to man, it was an offering to God. But men
take what happened there and they believe that they can make
some contribution to it physically and have a spiritual outcome
and it's not possible. Here we see the very reason that
Christ came into this world was to do the will of God. Now if we are in the flesh and
the flesh cannot please God, How are we to do something that
God would be pleased with? We need a substitute. We need
a substitute. By Christ doing the will of God,
he accomplished everything required for the salvation of his people.
He accomplished it all. What is his will? Well, Angel
of the Lord announced his arrival and said, call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sin. That's the will
of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ would save his people from their
sin. What is his will? Well, this
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. That's the will of God. What is the Lord's will? That
all of the elect would come to the knowledge of the truth. What'd
the Lord say? Of all the Father given me, I'm
not gonna lose one of them. I'm not gonna lose one of them.
Turn with me to 2 Peter chapter three. Here we have the will
of God revealed. Here we have the will of God
revealed 2 Peter 3 verses 8-9 it says, But beloved, be not
ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord a thousand
years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slack
concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to us. We are not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works
that are therein shall be burnt up." Here we have the Lord's
will in its entirety. He's not willing that any should
perish, but all should come to repentance. I remember this was
a verse that a lot of people have liked to take a stand on
and say, well, he's not willing that anyone should perish. And
who's he talking to? Because if he means everybody
without exception, if everybody, he's not willing that anybody
perish, that his will has nothing to do with salvation at all.
Or, or it would just, he would be powerless, completely powerless
to do what he wants to do. If he's saying that God is not
willing, anyone should perish. He's either a liar or he's powerless. or he's unable to perform what
he wants to do. We get in his way, that makes
us God, doesn't it? No, but who's he talking to here?
Who's he talking to here? Look at this, verse eight again,
but beloved, beloved. Look at verse one. The second
epistle, beloved, I write unto you. You, who's beloved? Who's the beloved of God? That's
his elect. That's his people chosen in the covenant of grace
before time. That's who he loves. He doesn't love everybody. That's
who he loves, his people. And this is who he's talking
about. He's not willing that any of his sheep should perish, but
all should come to repentance. Now we know that God's sovereign.
That's how we started this message. We know that he's seated on the
throne. We know that he is God. We know that he is God and we
are not. He's not willing that any should perish. Any of his
people perish, but all should come to repentance. And who can
say unto him, what doest thou? Or who can stay his hand? They're
all gonna come to repentance, aren't they? That's his will.
That's his will, and it's going to come to pass. Because who
he is, he has all the power. If he wills it, it's going to
come to pass. If he wills it, it is going to come to pass.
You and I will things. We have a desire to do things, and so
many times I get in my own way doing things, but we want this
certain outcome, and this outcome doesn't happen the way we wanted
it to. You get frustrated because the outcome didn't, that never
happens with God. Everything that he does, he does it perfectly. Everything he wills comes to
pass according to his determinate counsel. Nothing can stop him.
He doesn't make mistakes like you and I do. And this thing
of salvation, he didn't make a mistake. He redeemed his people
successfully by his own blood. That was the will of God. What's the will of God that none
of his people would perish? By that will, he chose to redeem
them. He elected them to eternal life. He chose to make them,
as we heard the first hour in the image of his son, chose them,
chose to robe them in his righteousness by the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary Street. In the fullness of time, he by
himself came to this earth, became a man and purged our sins. And
after that, he sat down. He was resurrected and he sat
down because the father was pleased. That was the will of God. That
was the will of God, the successful redemption of his chosen people. It ensures and guarantees that
we will never perish. Lord said, my sheep hear my voice
and I know them. and they follow me, and I've
given to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave
them me is greater than all, and no man's able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. And we're never gonna perish.
Why? Because of His will. Because
of His will. I go back to our text in Hebrews
chapter 10. Luke 7, then said, I, lo, I come
in the volume of the book it is written to me to do thy will,
O God, to do thy will. He came, the Lord Jesus Christ
came because of the will of God. He fulfilled the will of God
because he is God. He was successful because of
who he was. Because of his will, he purposed
it. He achieved it. He was successful because of
His will, because of His will. He saved His people from their
sin. What is His will? Well, His will
is that they will never perish. It's impossible for His people
to perish because He successfully redeemed. He successfully redeemed. He performed it according to
His will. He chose to do it, and then he did it, and then
he just lets me and you know about it. He says, look, this
is what I've done. He said, I'm gonna do it, and
he did it. Now he says, this is what I've done. I like that.
I love that. That means I can't do anything
to it, and that means I can't mess it up. I can't mess it up. Second thing is we are begotten
by his will. So he himself put away our sin. He himself shows us that by his
will he saved us from our sin. But the second thing is we're
begotten by his will. We're made alive by his will.
Turn with me to James chapter one. Wouldn't have done us any good
if he just, put our sin away and then just left us in the
state that we were. He had to birth us into His family also,
didn't He? Look at verses 16 through 18,
James chapter one. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning, of His own will, begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of
his creature, of his creatures. Not only did he ensure that we
would never perish, but we're made alive by his will. We're made alive by the word
of truth. We're made alive when he says, well, live. live. If he leaves us in the state
that we're in, we would never come to him because we're dead
and trespasses and in sin, but we're begotten by his will, by
the word of truth. It is his will to have first
saved us. Then it's his will to second
call us when the fullness of time comes. This is his will.
This is his will. We are begotten by his will into
a lively hope. born of the spirit, born from
above, born again, born again. Of his own will, we will never
perish. And of his own will, he brings us to the knowledge
of that by saying, live. You're never gonna perish. Why? I put away your sin. According to the determinant
counsel of our sovereign God, he gives life. to every one of
his sheep. He gives repentance towards God.
He gives faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. This was his will.
This was his will. I go back to our text again,
and Hebrews, just a couple pages back, Hebrews 10. Let's look at verse seven through
10. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book it is
written to me to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, sacrifice
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 taketh away the
first, that he may establish the second, by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once and for all. What is God's will? God's will
is to have redeemed his chosen people, unto eternal life, and
he did, and he did, that we would never perish, and then make us
know all about it by his spirit. Him giving his spirit, saying
unto us, live. Lastly, his will is to work in
us according to the good pleasure of his will. First, His will
is to save us that we would never perish. Second, is to make us
alive in Christ Jesus by His Spirit. And lastly, it's to work
in us according to the good pleasure of His will. Turn to Philippians
chapter two. Philippians chapter two, we're
just gonna look at one verse, verse 13. For it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The Lord is going to make us
cry out to him. He didn't just save us and then
brought us to the knowledge, by bringing us to the knowledge
of the truth, showing us all that he's done, and then says,
well, you're on your own now. Aren't you thankful for that?
No, we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed at the last time. And what he's saying here
about the work that he's doing in us, he's not working us. People talk about progressive
sanctification. You're getting better and better. And that's
so contrary to scripture. It's just, it's not so. That's
just self-righteousness is all that it is. That's not the work
that he's doing. We've already been sanctified
by his will. We just read that. It's clear. Now what he's doing
is he's abasing us over and over. He's bringing us lower and lower. That's how the believer grows,
is the way ups down. We don't go up by going up. We
see less of ourself, we see more of him. And that's the work that
he does in the heart of the believer. The Lord's gonna make us cry
out to him for help. The Lord's gonna prove our faith,
not prove it to him. He knows whether we have it or
not. He's going to prove our faith in order to make us cry
out. Look at all those that came to
the Lord that had need. The only reason they came to
the Lord was they had a need. Think about the hundreds, maybe
thousands of people that witnessed miracles and they saw the Lord
do all these wonderful acts, but they were never made sinners. They didn't have a need. God
was right there with them and they couldn't see him. Lord,
give me that need. Give me that need. You hear the
good news. The Lord made it very clear that
he is going to work in us according to his will, according to his
determinate counsel, making us have a need of Christ, making
us need him more and more. It's true, isn't it? Those of
you who've been on the way sometime, you need him more today than
you did yesterday. You don't need him more tomorrow than you do
today. It's just how it is. It's just how it is. He becomes sweeter
and sweeter and we become more dependent upon him. Until the
point we get to, we agree with Paul completely. We're continually
dependent upon him till we say it's in him we live, and we move
and we have our being. It's in him we do all these things.
You know, they like to use that verse, I can do all things through
Christ which strengtheneth me. And they use that in sports and
different things like that. You know what that's talking
about, don't you really? That's the ability to cry out
to Christ for mercy. That's the ability to come to
Christ. That's the ability to come to
Christ. I can do all things through Christ, and I can do nothing
else outside of being in Christ, nothing, because he is my strength. I have no strength, I'm impotent.
He is my sight, I have no sight, I'm blind. He is my feet, I can't
walk without him. He's everything to the believer. We've been saved by the blood,
by his will. We've been quickened by his spirit,
by his will. And we're kept by the power of
God, according to his will. That was and is the will of God.
That was and is the will of God. You and I are made to bow to
his will and to trust his choices, not ours. And we like to trust
our choices. We know it's true. I think I
want this to happen. I think I know best. I'm desiring
this outcome, so I think this will work. And then it doesn't
work. What do you do? Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Don't leave me to myself. Oh,
we would benefit so often if we would Every situation we come
in, we bring our petitions before his throne. Lord, is it okay
if I do that? If not, close the door. I don't
want trouble, I want peace. Peace is so underrated. Peace is wonderful. You have
peace in your life, peace in your home, peace in your marriage.
You can't put a price on that. Have peace with God? Oh, it's
priceless. Lord, give me peace. Don't leave
me to myself. Show me your will. And that's
exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did as our intercessor. In the intercessor prayer, they
prayed. Whenever he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was
praying to his father. He said, Father, let this cup pass from
me, that be thy will. But nevertheless, not my will,
but thine be done. Why did he show us that? To make
our petitions known to God and to pray for his will. To make
our petitions known to God and pray for his will. Lord, I need
this, or I need this, but nevertheless, not my will, thy will be done. Thy will be done. You know, you're
sovereign, I'm not. You're holy, I'm other. I'm sinful,
I'm false. You're truth, you're full of
grace. This is the work that he does in the heart of his people.
This is how he brings us lower, and what did John say? He must
increase, and I must decrease. I must decrease. Scripture says
in Luke 14, he that exalted himself shall be a base, but he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted. You know, you and I can't really
humble ourselves. Did you know that Lord has to do that? Lord
has to do that. And he does for his people. He
does. God spared not his own son, but
freely offered him up in our stead. Shall he not with him
give us all things, all things needed, all things according
to his will? Now that's the question. What
is God's will? Well, here's another question. Do we trust God's will
or trust ours? Do we trust our choice or we
trust his? Does he know best or do we know
best? Our flesh says, well, I know best. The new man says, nah,
no, he knows best. He knows best. We are made to say with our great
Lord and Savior, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not
my will, not Caleb's will, Lord, no, your will, your will's best. Only by your will could your
people have been redeemed. If I was left with a choice,
I would have never chose you. It was only by your choice, that
was your will, you did that. Only by your choice, your will,
your people quickened, made alive. If it was up to me, I would have
never been able to, a dead man can't make himself come back
alive. Lord, this is all you. Lord, I can't keep myself. It's
all by your will that you keep me. And then we just find ourself
resting, knowing that it's all by his will, his determinant
counsel, his purpose. Lord, give us an example of a
prayer. In closing, I'll tell us this.
The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. And so many people
have said it's the Lord's Prayer. That's not the Lord's Prayer.
You go to John chapter 17 to find the Lord's Prayer. Go to
the Garden of Gethsemane to find the Lord's Prayer. This was the model prayer.
He said, as often as you pray, pray like this. Our Father, that
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. You know
what the next few words are right there? Thy will be done. on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses that
we forgive those who trespassed against us. Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory forever. Amen. What is the key focal point
in that prayer? Thy will be done. I'm making
my petitions known, but thy will be done. Thy will be done. That's the heart the Lord gives
his people by the working of his spirit in them. When they
hear the gospel, we're made to be like Job. Lord, I'm going
to put my hands over my mouth and I'm not going to talk anymore.
That's what Job said. Behold, I'm vile. That's what
Job said. Behold, I'm vile. That's where
the Lord brings us to. Oh, and then he shows us our savior.
And we see, we see his beauty for the first time all over again,
it feels like, and we just fall flat on our face like Mephibosheth.
Lord, What is thy servant that thou should look upon such a
dead dog as I am? And he says, I'm not doing it
for you, I'm doing it for Jonathan, for Christ's sake, for Christ's
sake. What is God's will? That his
people should never perish, therefore he made them the righteousness
of God in Christ. What is God's will? That he births
us by his spirit at the appointed time, his time that he chose
according to his will. And lastly, his will is to work
in us according to his purpose, according to his determinant
counsel, bringing us closer to our Savior, causing us to see
more of him and less of ourself, keeping us until we awake in
his likeness. This is the will of God. Let's pray. Father, cause us
to pray, thy will be done, not our will be done. Bless this
to our understanding, for your glory in Christ's name, amen.