"Prayer and His Will" Matthew 6:10b Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew 6, we're going to be looking at the last half of verse 10, but I'll begin reading in verse 9.

Our Lord Jesus says, Pray then like this.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So today we're going to look at that phrase, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And we'll look at it by means of a question.

Do you want to know the will of God?

I mean, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to say that I know the will of God in this circumstance or that circumstance?

Think of all that you could do if you knew the will of God in every situation in life.

You could leverage the stock market.

You could know who's going to win the next Super Bowl.

Probably not the Redskins.

You could know to put in the language of a high school student right now, this is Junior graduating.

You could know which college you're supposed to go to.

Or later on in life, who you're supposed to marry, or later on in life what job you should take.

Should you take a job in this city or that city?

Should you take a promotion and go over there?

Should you extend it and stay here?

Or even further in life?

You know, which which grandkid do you want to retire to?

Or should you retire, or should you keep working?

I mean, there's these decisions that you'll be making at every stage in life.

And often those decisions get framed around what is the will of the Lord in this circumstance?

What is it that God would want me to do?

There's a lot of bad ways to try to discern the will of the Lord.

I remember a girl that I knew in college.

She was a volleyball player and she was a new believer.

She and I came to faith around the same time, and she decided she was going to quit the volleyball team because she said she knew it was God's will for her to quit the volleyball team.

And how could she know that?

And she said, because she likes volleyball so much that of course God wouldn't want her to keep playing it if she enjoyed it.

Now, certainly there's room for you know this idea of idolatry, and you find your identity in something, and so maybe it's good for you to take a time away from that, but that's not what she meant by that, believe me.

She meant just I know it can't be God's will for me to have fun.

That would be a bad approach to understanding God's will.

You have this idea of the audible voice.

People say, Oh, the Lord told me this because we don't know what decision to make.

So I've heard people say, The Lord told me I need to make this decision.

The Lord told me I'm supposed to marry you.

Have you ever heard that one?

If you hear it, it's I would respond with, you know, I think I'm gonna need to wait for some independent corroboration here.

When I hear the same voice, then I might believe it.

The truth is, we live in a world where uh we don't always know the right decision to make.

We don't know what choice we should make around the next corner, and yet at the same time, we also have a theology that says that God is sovereign over all things, that everything that happens happens for God's glory and underneath God's authority and God's control.

And this leads to another, I think, bad example of trying to discern God's will.

Sometimes we fall into this trap of believing that God has a certain will for our life that we're supposed to discover and know, and that if we make a choice wrongly, then we've wrecked God's will for our life.

I've heard this from a lot of people.

They have this idea, a single person might say, I know God has one person I'm supposed to marry, but what if I choose the wrong person?

Then have I messed up my life?

Was it God's will for me to do this?

Or even later in life, you might say, I could take this job in this city or that job in this city.

What is God's will for me?

I don't know, and I make a choice, and you look back, and you're like, oh, I chose wrong, and now there's no recovery.

I can never get my life back aligned with God's will because of that one choice I made seven years ago.

Oh, the sorrow.

I call that the bad doctrine of the one.

That there's a secret plan out there that God has for you, the one person, the one job, the one city, the one whatever, and that if you choose wrongly, you've wrecked your life.

But that's just not true.

I want to help you this morning as we're praying in Matthew 6, verse 10, for God's will to be done.

Matthew 6:10

I want you to, I want to help you think critically about God's will.

I want to help you have a better understanding of God's will.

And the best place to start is just with this basic distinction.

In theology, in the Bible, there are two different categories of God's will.

And you have to have these two different categories to make any sense of what the Bible says about God's will, or you will be hopelessly confused.

Because at the heart of any discussion of God's will is the tension between these two categories.

These two categories are intention, and if you confuse them, you will end up frustrated and making some very bad decisions in life.

First, these two categories: God's sovereign will and God's moral will.

And different theology books might give them different labels, you know, God's secret will and God's revealed will, or God's decreed will, or his providential will.

There's all kinds of different labels.

I like these two labels the best because I feel like they capture what they're describing.

The first is God's sovereign will.

This is the idea, the theological truth, that God is sovereign over all things that happen, and that everything that happens happens according to his sovereign will.

This will is exhaustive.

God is sovereign over all things that happen at all time.

Nothing happens apart from his sovereign will.

And his sovereign will is all-encompassing, it covers every detail of life.

There is no molecule too small that does not fall under God's sovereign will.

This sovereign will is immutable, which means it can't be changed.

It is eternal, which means God has decreed all things from before the foundation of time.

Before day one of creation, Father, Son, and Spirit decreed all that would happen, all that is happening, all that has happened, everything in creation is decreed by God according to his sovereign will.

No, God's sovereign will is particular and exhaustive and covers all things.

There are no rebel molecules when it comes to God's sovereign plan.

And in one sense, you don't need to pray for God's sovereign will, because God's sovereign will always happen.

There's no alternative to it.

His sovereign will is exhaustive and covers every element of life.

It is perfect and it is decreed by God and it will come to pass.

And to say it conversely, nothing outside of his sovereign will can ever happen.

There's no alternatives to this.

And that's why I say you don't need to pray for God's sovereign will to happen because it becomes a logically refuting argument.

You could say, uh, you know, if I don't pray for God's sovereign will to happen, then God's sovereign will must be for me not to pray for a sovereign will to happen.

Are you following?

It makes more sense if you write it down on paper, you can follow it.

Sovereign will includes and encompasses all things, and it will always happen.

And Pastor George talked a little bit about this last week that sometimes God's sovereign will includes our prayers to bring about his will.

Of course, that we we pray in line with his will, but that's not what is talked about here in Matthew 6.

When you're praying for his will to be done, it's not praying that his sovereign will would happen.

His sovereign will is always going to happen.

And there's several verses that describe this.

So Revelation 4, verse 11 is one that comes to mind.

Revelation 4:11

Worthy are you, Lord, and our God, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

That's an all things category right there.

And it's by God's will that all things exist, and it is by God's will that all things that exist were created by him.

Nothing exists that wasn't created by God, and all things he willed to create, he created, and he created them exactly like he willed to create them.

This covers the good in life, the bad in life.

The ups and the downs, all things fall under his sovereign will.

Another example of a verse like this one that I just encountered this week in my devotional life, Daniel 4, verse 35.

Daniel 4:35

It's a verse that I'd read many times before, but in preparing a sermon on God's sovereign will, this struck me in a new way.

Daniel 4, this is Nebuchadnezzar, by the way, newly converted Nebuchadnezzar saying, All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among all the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And no one can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done?

Nobody can oppose the sovereign will of God.

It will always happen.

It is happening.

Nebuchadnezzar understood this.

It's God's will.

And Paul says it, Paul personalizes it in the New Testament.

He says, In him we live, move, and breathe, and have our being.

That's Acts 17.

Or to the Colossians, Paul says, all things exist by his sovereign power.

Christ holds all things together.

If it weren't for the express will of Christ, something couldn't possibly exist.

God's sovereign will is eternal, meaning it predates creation and it's active right now.

It's not just that God made a plan before creation and then all things just kind of happen according to that plan.

That's deism.

Rather, God made a plan before creation that covers all things, and he's actively ensuring they all take place right now.

It's a very active sovereignty.

God is pure action, pure light, and he is at work in the world according to his sovereign will at this very moment.

But the hard part with this category of God's sovereign will is you can't know what it is.

That's the hard part.

And that's the frustrating part.

We want access to the secret plans of God.

We want to know what his sovereign decreed will is before we make choices.

A practical example.

We want to know who it's God's plan for us to marry before we propose.

Or to use evangelism.

We want to know who the elect are before we evangelize.

I mean, what a time saver that would be.

Right?

If you knew who would respond to evangelism, you could tailor your evangelism right towards them.

But we don't get access to God's sovereign will.

We don't get to know about it.

So we apply for two different jobs and we get accepted at both, or we apply to three different colleges and we get accepted at both.

Hopefully you don't propose to two different people and see what happens.

You know, we're just trying to make choices in life without knowing what the future will bring, because we don't have access to God's sovereign will.

However, there's a second category of God's will, the scripture describes, and that's God's moral will.

And this is what we do know.

This is what God reveals to us.

This is where the Bible says, this is the will of God, fill in the blank.

And it's where God commands us to do things according to his will.

When the Bible says, do this, it's my will, that's what it's talking about.

And Paul speaks like this all the time.

Paul says, you know, first of all, he says, speaking of God's sovereign will, he says, I'm an apostle by the will of God, meaning he is an apostle.

He tells the Corinthians, I would come to you if it's the will of God.

That's the sovereign will of God.

Paul says, I want to go to you, but I don't know what will happen.

This is the book of James, where James says, don't say I'm going to do this and do that and go to this city and make such and such a profit, because you're a man.

You don't know what the will of God is.

Rather, say, if the Lord wills, I'll do this or that.

Meaning you don't know the sovereign will of God, but what you do know is the moral will of God.

That you're supposed to work hard, that you're supposed to plan with an open hand, with an open hand, you're supposed to hold your plans.

The moral will of God is what you're praying for in Matthew 6, verse 10, for God's will to be done, for you to submit your life to the will of God as it's said in the scripture.

Matthew 6:10

Now, these two categories of God's will are intention.

They're inherently intention.

For example, let me give you just a couple examples of this to help you see the tension before we start to unpack God's moral will.

Isaiah 46, verse 10 says that no one can reject God's will.

Isaiah 46:10

Nobody can reject God's will.

And yet Jesus looks at the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders and says, You always resist the will of God.

How can those both be true?

Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 says nobody can resist God's will.

Jesus in Luke 7, verse 30 tells the Pharisees, you are rejecting God's will right now.

Luke 7:30

That's Luke 7, verse 30.

Luke 7:30

How can they both be true?

Romans 9, verse 19 says, Can anyone resist his will?

Romans 9:19

And yet the world is filled with people who are rejecting and resisting what God's word says.

And so as you look at these two categories in the screen, I just hope you see the balance between them.

The sovereign will of God cannot be resisted.

The moral will of God is frequently resisted, and you're held accountable for resisting it.

Think of the betrayal of Jesus.

The moral will of God says don't murder.

The moral will of God says don't lie, don't give false testimony about somebody.

And yet the sovereign will of God is that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend, prophesied all the way back in the Old Testament.

It would be a friend who betrayed him with false testimony and that he would be murdered.

The moral will of God says don't murder.

The sovereign will of God is that Jesus will be murdered.

These two things are intention.

And it's so hard, it's so hard because we don't know the sovereign will of God.

I think a great verse on this, very commonly quoted verse, Deuteronomy 29.29.

I think it's often misapplied.

I think it's best understood in terms of the understanding of the will of God distinction here.

Deuteronomy 29.29, the secret things belong to Yahweh our God.

Meaning that the eternal plan of God, the eternal decree of God that covers all things, that belongs to Yahweh, not to you.

You don't get to know it.

You don't get to read the next chapter.

You don't know what God's plan is for your life.

You don't know.

But the things that are revealed, the verse goes on to say, belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law.

So there's two categories here: the exhaustive secret will of God that you do not get to know.

And then the clearly revealed moral will of God that you should internalize and teach to your kids that produces a life of obedience, it says in verse 29, that you will do all the words of this law.

That's the moral command of God.

The law, the Torah, the commands that God gives you.

That's the law that Moses gave Israel that they're supposed to follow.

And that same distinction is true for us at this very moment.

You don't know God's future for you.

You don't know what God has in store this afternoon in your life.

You have no way of knowing.

But you do know what He commands you to do in accordance with His will.

That's what you're responsible for.

And like I said, sometimes these two things are in conflict.

And that's what this prayer is about.

You're praying in Matthew 6, verse 10, for your will, God's will to be done, for God's kingdom to come.

Matthew 6:10

You understand from our previous time in this passage that God's kingdom is over the nations, that Jesus will return to the earth in the future and establish his kingdom.

His kingdom in that sense is not here right now.

Nevertheless, he is our king and we are kingdom citizens.

We are living out kingdom ethics.

That's what the Sermon on the Mount is about.

We enter the kingdom through repentance and faith.

We live in the kingdom by subjecting our will to his, and that's what we're praying for.

We're praying that God's kingdom would be evident in our lives by how we are serving our king.

And a very basic part of that prayer is that God's will would be done over and against ours.

You're praying to crucify your desires and bring your life into subjection to God's will.

This prayer is you asking God to help you conform your desires to God's moral will for your life.

And so, let's go back to my earlier question.

Do you want to know the will of the Lord?

Yes?

Yes.

Good.

All two of you.

It is God's will.

Here's an outline for you.

It is God's will for you.

I'm going to share with you what it is God's will for you to do.

You want to know what job to take, who to marry, what promotion to take, when to retire.

All of that.

I'm going to help you this morning.

Here's God's will for your life.

Not his secret will, which you don't get to know, but his moral will, revealed in his word, that he gives you to believe and to teach your children, etc.

First, it is God's will for you to be saved.

It is God's will for you to be saved.

The scripture speaks of this over and over and over again.

Ezekiel 18, verse 23.

Ezekiel 18:23

Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?

declares the Lord Yahweh, not rather that he should turn from his way and live.

It is God's will that people repent from their sins and come to faith in the Savior.

2 Peter 3, verse 9.

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise towards you, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to eternal life.

This is the moral will of God.

God wants you to be saved.

God is revealing his moral will to you and saying it is his will for every creature to come to faith in Jesus Christ.

If you are a person, he desires you to come to faith in Jesus Christ.

That is his moral will.

He wills for you to be saved.

Now I'm not going to do this with every part of God's moral will, but I do want to pull the car over real quick and look in the rearview mirror and remember the category distinctions between his sovereign will and his moral will, because sometimes people look at verses like 2 Peter 3 verse 9 and they lose that category distinction and it leads to all kinds of bad theology.

2 Peter 3:9

So they think that 2 Peter 3 verse 9 is God's sovereign will.

2 Peter 3:9

And they say, see, it's God's sovereign will that every person be saved.

Therefore, every person is elect.

Therefore, every person, you know, is under God's sovereign decree for salvation, and that just leads to all kinds of very bad theology because you forgot your category distinction before the first bus stop.

When this verse says it's God's desire that all people everywhere be saved, it's not talking about his secret sovereign will.

It's talking about his moral decreed will.

It is God's will for every person to be a Christian.

And let's just make it more specific.

It's God's will for you to be a Christian.

God has a desire for you to come to faith in Christ.

That's what he reveals to you.

So often we want to stumble over this or skip this and say, okay, yeah, but before we talk about whether I'm or not I'm a Christian, can't we get to who I'm supposed to marry?

But no, this is the first stop in understanding God's will.

That you come to faith in Christ.

First Peter, our first Timothy two, verse three says it this way: This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

So if you want to know what God's will is for your life, step one, God's will for your life is for you to be a Christian.

This is where the Sermon on the Mount began as well.

It's God's will for you, for you to understand that you are a sinner deserving God's judgment, that you have sinned against God, and that God's wrath is deservingly aimed at you.

But God has made a way of escape from his judgment, namely, Jesus Christ, who was born, God in human flesh, led a human life, a sinless life, and then died a death as a substitute for your sin, meaning all of God's wrath that was aimed at your sin can be poured out on him so that he dies in your place, bearing the punishment you deserve.

He then resurrects from the grave on the third day, having demonstrated that he paid the penalty for your sin, and he offers forgiveness to all who would believe in him, to those who would say, I know I'm a sinner and I deserve hell.

I confess my sin and I receive the forgiveness of God that he's made available through Jesus Christ.

That is the gospel.

And it is God's will for you to believe that.

For you to believe the gospel.

And that's exhaustive.

You can look at Any person in the world and say God wants you to be saved.

That's his moral will.

That you should come to faith in Jesus Christ.

And like I said, don't get wrapped around the axle of what job to take or what car to buy or what city to live in or what to name your dog or any of those choices.

Like, oh, what would God want me to do in this situation when you're not a Christian?

God has made it clear what he wants you to do in the big picture for you to come to faith in Christ, don't sidestep that to get on the minutia of the other choices.

You can't act like you care, you can't act like you want God to care about all those other choices when you aren't caring about the most obvious command he's given you.

To come to faith in Christ.

So the first thing that God's will is for your life is for you to be saved.

The second thing God will is for your life is for you to be sanctified.

For you to be sanctified.

It's God's will for you to be saved, followed by sanctification.

Sanctification just means that you would be more and more godly throughout your life, that you would grow in godliness.

You know, plants grow in size and stature and the depth of the roots.

People grow in size and stature as they go from being a little baby to a kid to a teenager, etc.

Christians should grow in size and stature as they're growing in their faith.

Their roots should go deeper in their word, in the word.

They should have stronger convictions about the gospel, they should do a better job at fighting sin in their life, a better job at putting off sin and putting on righteousness, and that should go throughout your life.

You should grow in godliness, grow in faith, grow in Bible reading, grow in practical righteousness as you're living out your Christian faith.

That should increase throughout your life.

That's sanctification.

Now, of course, you understand sanctification, you'd want it to be a straight line growth throughout your life, but you recognize that it's not really a straight line growth throughout your life, right?

Sanctification has the ups and downs to it.

It's more like the stock market, you know.

Oh, hey, very godly.

You know, up and down throughout your life.

That's the way sanctification works.

That's God's will for us to grow in godliness.

So you might not be godlier today than you were yesterday, but hopefully you're godlier this year than you were last year, kind of thing.

Over the course of your life, your godliness should be growing.

That's God's will for you to grow in godliness.

I want you to flip over to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Go write a few books.

Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

There's so many verses that say this, but Ephesians 5, verse 17 is probably one of the more clear ones.

Ephesians 5:17

So I want you to see it with your own eyes.

You have these nice fancy Bibles, so let's uh let's use them.

Ephesians 5, 17.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

So before you even read verse 18, just let that verse slap you upside the head for a second and say, listen, if you don't know the will of the Lord, you are being foolish.

Paul gives you two categories: those who know the will of the Lord and those who are fools.

Now, obviously, he's not talking about the sovereign will of the Lord because you can't know that.

He's talking about the moral will of the Lord.

You either know it or you are a fool.

So he says, don't be foolish.

But understand what the will of the Lord is.

And here's some examples.

Don't get drunk with wine.

That's debauchery.

But be filled with the Spirit.

That just means you're yielding your life to the authority of God's word.

So there's a very practical explanation of what God's will is for your life.

For you not to be drunk, but for you to be godly.

And this is going to go on and on.

We won't read all this, but this goes on and on for another, you know, full chapter here.

Address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody of the Lord with your heart.

You know, be part of a church that sings.

Quote scripture to people, encourage people in God's word.

That's what God's will is for your life.

Verse 20, give thanks always and for everything to God the Father.

That's part of your sanctification, that you are thankful for always.

Listen, are you in a situation right now?

Everybody needs to say yes to that question.

Are you in a situation right now?

It's God's will for you, in your situation right now, for you to be thankful for it.

That's the will of the Lord.

You're going through something hard right now?

Be thankful for it.

You're going through something easier right now, be thankful for it.

You're going to just the mundane things of life right now.

Be thankful for that.

This is the will of the Lord that you are thankful for all things, every situation you're in in your life.

Giving thanks always, verse 20 says, and for everything.

It's God's will for you to be sanctified.

Part of that is thankfulness, part of that is sobriety, part of that is thinking serious about the world for putting off of drunkenness and putting on righteousness.

This is just practical application.

Your speech, it's God's will that your speech would be pure.

That's what the will of the Lord is.

People are asking Moses, what's the will of the Lord?

And Moses tells the people, the will of the Lord's not far from you.

It's not up in heaven, you'd have to climb up and see it.

It's not the bottom of the ocean, you have to swim down and get it.

The word of the Lord is right near you, on your tongue, in your mind, in your heart.

You're like, okay, what is it?

For you to have pure speech and a pure life.

Encouraging speech.

Not getting drunk, growing in godliness.

That's God's will.

And you could picture people going, oh no, no, that's not what I meant.

But that's God's will, your sanctification.

And particularly in a couple areas, particularly sexually.

It's God's will for you to be sanctified, particularly for you to be sexually pure.

This is a whole category of sanctification in the New Testament where it says this is God's will.

Let me show you on your screen.

1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

This is the will of God.

Again, the Bible's not subtle with this.

You don't need to go to seminary to figure this out.

This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

What's God's will for you?

For you to be sexually pure.

This passage goes on, by the way, 1 Thessalonians 4, to say the next verse, that each one of you know how to take your own spouse, know how to take your own wife in dignity and honor, not in passionate lust like the heathen who don't know the Lord, knowing that whoever wrongs their brother or sister sexually in this way will be judged by God Himself.

The Lord is the avenger.

That's the rest of the passage.

So what's God's will for your life?

You to be sanctified, particularly for you to be sexually pure.

Sin makes you stupid.

Amen.

And sexual sin makes you specifically stupid.

It makes you unable to make good decisions when you're walking in sin.

You're not able to make good decisions about other things in life.

Another basic example, I know I keep using high school students as the example here, and that's just because the rest of you are you've you've grown out of that phase.

You don't make the same mistakes you did back then.

You're so much wiser and godlier, so it's easier to talk about them.

You picture the student that applies to three colleges, and he says, I don't know which is it God's will for me to go to, which is God's will, but they're in an immoral, sexually impure relationship with somebody who's going to that college over there.

Suddenly they're not thinking very clearly about these choices.

Sin is clouding their judgment about God's will.

Aren't you glad that you've aged out of that?

Sin makes you unable to make good choices about your life, for you to discern what God's will is in your life.

And so the scripture says it's God's will for you to be sexually pure.

Second category of that.

It's God's will for you to be saving.

And I have so much I could talk more about money here in finances, but I'll skip it just for the sake of time, except to say often these God's will questions get framed around: should I buy this?

Should I spend money on this or should I spend money on that?

It's God's will for you to be a good steward of your money, not for you to waste it, not for you to spend your money, to go into debt on something that's worth less five seconds after you buy it than it was five seconds ago.

It's God's will for you to be a good steward of your finances.

Listen, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

And if you're pursuing riches in this life, it will end up, you'll end up making bad choices and you'll hurt your soul.

You'll make bad choices and your soul will be hurt with pangs that feel like death if you are chasing riches.

So it's God's will for you to be saved, it's God's will for you to be sanctified, specifically in the area of sexuality and savings.

And then thirdly, it's God's will for you to be willing to suffer.

Philippians 1 29, unto you has been given on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his name's sake.

It's God's will for you to suffer for the gospel.

And I say this because sometimes we make bad choices because we make the choice based upon what's easiest, not based upon what is most glorifying to the Lord.

And you think the Lord wouldn't want me to be in a situation where I suffer, so I must choose this.

But the reality is that's not how the New Testament describes God's will.

It is often God's will for you to suffer for believing in Christ.

Consider Jesus in the garden, where he expressly prays in the garden, Father, let this cut pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.

Jesus, the godliest person who ever lived, does not want sin given to him, yet he subjects his own will to God's will.

There's all kinds of examples like that.

You might hear of, you know, Jesus praying that, and you think, of course, Jesus is sinless and he's the eternal God.

Of course he can subject his will to God's will, of course he can suffer for the gospel, but God knows that I'm too frail for that.

God knows that I'm too soft to suffer for Jesus.

He wouldn't want me to do that.

Let me have you flip over to a different passage.

Acts 21.

Let's go left.

If you're still in Ephesians, go over to Acts chapter 21.

Acts 21 · chapter mention

This is Paul at this is one of my favorite examples of somebody who recognizes it's God's will to suffer.

This is a prayer meeting about whether or not Paul should go to Jerusalem.

That's the category here.

Paul's trying to decide, is it's a God's will category.

Paul's trying to decide, is it God's will for me to go to Jerusalem?

That's the question.

So he's trying to make a decision, he's getting his friends around him, and they're praying.

God, help reveal, should Paul go to Jerusalem?

That's what they're praying about.

When an unexpected guest shows up in verse 10, Acts 21, verse 10.

Acts 21:10

For many days this prayer meeting is going on, and a prophet named Agabus came in.

So a prophet shows up, coming to us, he took Paul's belt.

Prophets are always doing weird things in the Bible.

Imagine this guy walking to a prayer meeting and saying, Can I have that belt real quick?

Okay.

He then binds his own feet and hands.

So that's even stranger than taking the belt.

And he says, Thus says the Holy Spirit.

This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

So, okay, remember the context?

They're praying.

God, should Paul go to Jerusalem, inwalks a prophet, takes Paul's belt, ties himself up with it, and says, This is what's going to happen to the person who owns this belt if he goes to Jerusalem.

And everybody in the room is like, Well, don't go to Jerusalem then.

We've got an answer from the Lord.

And wouldn't that be lovely if your prayers were answered like that?

You're praying to God to help decision making and inwalks a prophet and tells you something like that.

I mean, I'm a cessationist, but I wouldn't say amen to that.

But notice how Paul responds to this.

Well, verse 12, first the people heard this and they urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

They're like, prayer answered Paul.

Let's move on.

But Paul answered verse 13, what are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart?

I'm ready not only to be imprisoned, but to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

So Paul hears that same thing and says, That's confirmation I'm supposed to go.

That's incredible.

Everybody else's starting point was what is best for Paul.

Paul's starting point, what glorifies the Lord the most?

A prophet comes in and says, You'll be persecuted for Jesus' sake if you go there.

And Paul says, That's the only confirmation I needed.

This is all over the book of Acts, by the way.

Earlier in the book of Acts, Peter and John were told to not preach in the city any longer.

They'll be imprisoned, they'll be beaten.

Jerusalem's a small city.

It's got a wall around it, small city.

Think of all the ways they could have gotten out of trouble.

I'll go, okay, I won't preach in the city anymore.

I'll go over to the Mount of Olives.

It's across the street.

I'll go over to Beth Page and preach there.

That's where Jesus stayed during Passion Week.

I'll go over to that field over there and preach there.

I'll go over to where he was crucified and preached there.

There's so many different places they could preach to avoid the punishment and to comply with the Jewish leaders.

Instead, Peter and John hear that and they say, okay, it must be God's will for us to preach in the city.

Exactly where they just told him not to.

The language the scripture uses is that it is God's will, this is Colossians, it's God's will for you to fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.

That's a verse that sounds like almost blasphemous, doesn't it?

If that wasn't a verse in the Bible, you would think you can't, you're not allowed to say that.

Filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, how can anything be lacking in the afflictions of Christ?

Well, Jesus' afflictions were perfect and atone for sin, but now he's ascended into heaven.

Right now, what's lacking in that is the presentation of those afflictions to the world.

Somebody who's willing to suffer for Christ to show the world how much more valuable Jesus is than the things of this world.

Paul says this in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

He says those people were willing to be suffer and be imprisoned for the sake of the gospel, showing the world that they valued Christ more than the things of this world.

This is Moses, who left Pharaoh's household to show that he would rather suffer with God's people than have the riches of Pharaoh's Egypt.

It is God's will for people to suffer for the gospel.

So you need this in your categories of God's will.

If you're making a decision about your life and your decision is, well, this way will be easier, and this way might involve suffering for Jesus, that's not a deal breaker in your decision making.

If anything, it's nudging you towards Jesus.

You want to make better decisions about God's will in your life?

Don't start with what is easiest.

Start with what glorifies the Lord, including suffering for Jesus.

So it's God's will for you to be saved.

It's God's will for you to be sanctified, including sexually pure and saving.

And it's God's will for you to be willing to suffer.

And then fourthly, it's God's will for you to be submissive, for you to be under the authority of those that are around you.

1 Peter 2, verse 13, I'll put on the screen for you.

1 Peter 2:13

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.

Whether it be the emperor is supreme or the governors is sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.

So there are categories here.

Peter's not exhaustive.

Every human institution, every human being is in an authority structure.

There's always somebody over you.

Be subject to them.

You know, be subject to your boss.

If you're a kid, be subject to your parents.

You're the high school senior, torn on which school to go to.

Here's a wild idea.

Ask your parents.

I went to seminary to learn that asking your parents is a good idea.

Your parents help.

Ask your boss.

Ask those in authority around you.

In a church context, ask those that are shepherding your soul.

Ask your pastor or your elders who are keeping watch over your soul before you make a big life decision.

Ask for input.

We all make very terrible decisions about our own life.

Do you know that?

I make terrible decisions about my own life because I'm in the middle.

I can't see behind me.

I don't see all around me.

People make better decisions about other people's lives when they know that person and love that person and are caring for that person.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to those that are around you.

To those that have authority over you.

Including human institutions.

I have basic examples.

You know, if you don't speed, you won't get a speeding ticket.

It's crazy how that works, isn't it?

It's God's will for you to not get a speeding ticket.

It's God's will for you to pay your taxes.

I know our tax code is complicated and you know very difficult to understand and all that.

Nevertheless, it's God's will for you to pay your taxes.

What about if the government tells you to do something that's ungodly?

What about if the government says something that is good is bad and something is bad is good?

Then you do submit to it.

Peter covers that right in the verse.

If you look at verse 14, obey the governors sent by those who punish evil and praise good.

Yes, if you make the verse say the opposite of what it says, then it doesn't apply.

If the government is punishing good and esteeming evil, you don't need to submit to it.

That's what Peter says right here.

But the general pattern, don't get focused on the exception right now.

The general pattern is that governments do generally punish evildoers and do generally praise those who do good things in this context, is paying their taxes and driving the speed limit.

This is the will of God, verse 15 says.

This is God's will for you to be subject to them as the normal pattern of your life.

Now, why does God want you to be subject to those people?

Well, it silences the ignorance of foolish people.

You don't satisfy the fools, but you silence them.

There's people out there going, blah, blah, blah, Christians, blah, blah, blah, Christians, blah, blah, blah, Christians.

You're never going to satisfy them.

If you try to make your life appealing to them, it's not going to happen.

But you can generally conduct your life in such a way that shuts them up.

Where you work quietly with your hands.

You raise your family to love the Lord and you lead a quiet life in dignity and honor.

It has the effect of silencing those foolish and ignorant people out there.

That's God's will.

And then it says it's God's will right there.

It's God's will for you to be obedient to your boss.

It's God's will for you to be obedient to those that are in authority around you, not to satisfy them, but to silence them.

And like I said, for kids, very basic, you know, it's God's will for you to be obedient to your parents.

I would encourage you to ask pastors and elders and those that are keeping watch over your soul for help in making big life decisions.

People who know you and love you and aren't aren't financially invested in you, or they don't gain anything from you growing in godliness except the Lord's reward.

So it's God's will for you to be saved, God's will for you to be sanctified, God's will for you to be willing to suffer, and God's will for you to be submissive.

And if you hear all that and you might say, Yeah, but that doesn't help me know which job to take.

37 minutes ago I signed up for a different sermon.

If you're tracking with me so far, that leads to this point.

It's God's will for you to be free, for you to do whatever you want to do.

It's God's will for you to choose according to your greatest desires.

God put those desires in your heart if you're going down this list.

Or let me say it even more clearly.

You cannot make a bad choice if you're following those four principles on the screen.

You don't know which school to go to?

Are you saved?

Are you pursuing sanctification?

Are you willing to suffer for Jesus?

Are you being submissive to the direction and the wisdom of those around you?

You go down the list, you're like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I am.

Then you can't make the wrong choice.

Whatever you choose is God's will for your life.

I mean, this is a freedom.

There's a liberty that comes from following Jesus this way.

A liberty that comes with this, you know, there's a tyranny of saying, oh, there's one person I'm supposed to marry, one job I'm supposed to take, one city I'm supposed to live in.

If I choose wrong, I've wrecked everything.

That is tyranny.

There's a liberty that comes from saying, God wants me to be saved.

Lord, here I am.

God wants me to be sanctified.

I'm putting off sin.

I'm growing godliness as best as I'm able.

I'm willing to suffer for Jesus.

I'm getting wisdom.

From those around you.

And now you're free to make the choices you want to make.

You can't choose wrongly.

And this brings us all back to prayer.

It brings us back to Matthew 6, verse 10.

Matthew 6:10

And you can even flip back there if you've meandered away from there.

Matthew 6, verse 10.

Matthew 6:10

You're praying, God, I want your will to be done.

This is a prayer to subject your own desires to the authority of the Word of God.

You understand that your desires are the enemy of freedom.

Your flesh is the enemy of this kind of free Christian living because your flesh wants sin.

Your body is lazy and sinful, and so you need to crucify the flesh to have this kind of freedom that I'm describing.

Galatians 5, verse 24.

Galatians 5:24

Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Matthew 16, verse 24.

Matthew 16:24

Jesus told the disciples, if anyone wants to come after me, he needs to deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

He crucifies the flesh.

He says, I'm putting to death these sinful desires, and what's left?

When your flesh is crucified, what's left?

The Spirit of God in your heart, applying the word of God to your life, and then you're free.

You're free.

This is not a one-time thing, brothers and sisters.

This is you praying every day.

Lord, I need to get my will subject to yours.

I'm bringing my will down, putting my will under yours, so that your will is done in my life.

You pray that, you're yielding your life to God.

You're putting on display the kingdom of God in this world here and now.

Jesus hasn't come yet to establish his kingdom, but you as a kingdom citizen, when you're crucifying your will and you're following King Jesus, then King Jesus is on display in your life.

That's why this prayer is connected.

Your kingdom come, Lord.

I'm praying for your kingdom to be on display through me as my will is nailed to the cross and your will is resurrected in my life.

Now I can live like I want to live.

You fight against the flesh, and then you walk in liberty, knowing that you can't make a bad choice.

You can't make a bad choice if you're walking in the will of the Lord.

God, we're grateful for the freedom we have in Christ.

Your word is not a burden to us, but it shows us the door to liberty and freedom.

Those who the Sun sets free are free indeed.

There's a liberty that comes from knowing you and yielding our life to your will.

You take us in places we never would have expected.

There's such joy.

And then seeing backwards your providence in it all, seeing backwards your providence and how you directed us and to our spouses and their families, or how you directed us in singleness, even how you closed doors before this moment to lead us to where we are now.

Lord, we there's no place you'd rather be than in the center of your will.

And we see that only backwards, only backwards can we see it.

We know the secret things belong to you, and we don't desire to pry them out of your hand, Lord.

But the moral commands, those are evident, those are obvious, and they're right before us.

Lord, help us lead lives walking with your moral commands.

We want to be obedient to you so that we have the freedom that you want us to have.

We give you thanks for the joy it is of being a Christian.

It's in Christ's name.

We pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, DC area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.