Beyond the Blueprint - Peti Szabad

Here we go.

We got a nice sermon coming up, starting a new sermon series this fall.

And uh uh the title of the sermon series is Beyond the Blueprint.

Uh and today's sermon is kind of an introduction that explains what we are gonna study out for the next uh few weeks.

Okay, uh probably about uh six six to eight weeks.

Uh so you guys know what a blueprint is, right?

Yeah.

It's it's this this design that engineer uh architects and engineers produce that very in a very detailed way explain how you're supposed to build a structure or uh a machine or there's there's blueprints for lots of things, but usually used in uh, for example, in in uh construction, right?

And you know, when there is a blueprint, what is your job if you're a constructor?

Follow the blueprint.

That's that's that's the job, right?

If you don't follow the blueprint, things will look funny.

Or fall down, or fall down, or it just won't be what the original designer had in mind.

Uh right?

I've got you guys a couple quotes about blueprints.

Here's one uh by this gentleman named uh uh Sterling W.

Sill.

He says, There is a blueprint for every accomplishment.

All we need to do is to know how to follow it.

Trial and error is ridiculous after the truth has once been established.

All right, that's uh that's uh I'm not gonna say whether I agree with this guy or not, but here's another quote from the same era.

Don't be a blueprint, be an original by Roy Acuff.

Uh so who are these two people?

The first quote is from uh one of the key leaders in the mid-20th century of the uh of the uh uh the Jehovah's Witnesses.

That's uh their their their he's he's is that's one of he's one of their apostles, as they call him.

The other guy is a country singer and musician.

Couldn't you tell from the quotes, right?

You know, but we we struggle as Christians.

You know, is there actually a blueprint for my life?

Does God design my life to that small amount of detail and and and where is it if he did?

And how do I find it?

Uh the couple of the good books that I could recommend and read uh not multiple times uh that that that that I've I've enjoyed a lot.

Uh the first one is is from the 1980s originally, uh Decision Making and the Will of God by Gary Friesen.

And uh this is a more theological, thicker book.

Most people probably wouldn't enjoy it.

The other book by uh Kevin DeYoung is is is from 2010, and it's written for young people like college students and people who are still in their 30s living in their mother's basement.

That kind of that's that's his audience.

Okay, no, no judgment.

That's his audience.

That's the people that that he's like, how can we help these people that are kind of stuck and can't make a decision?

So his title is just do something.

And uh a liberating approach to finding God's will.

Okay, a couple of quotes.

So I'm actually going back to the two quotes I I shared from the Jehovah's Witnesses preacher and from the musician.

I don't know if I agree with either one of them completely.

And you don't need to either, you actually don't need to agree with me either.

Uh hopefully you do agree with what the Bible teaches because that's from God.

And we're gonna try to interpret it and study that a little bit.

But I got a couple quotes from one of one from each of these books.

Uh, this is by uh the Gary Friesen book.

He says, if if we ask, How can I know the will of God?

we may be asking the wrong question.

The scriptures do not command us to find God's will for most of life's choices, nor do we have any passage instructing us on how it can be determined.

We seek relief from the responsibility of decision-making, and we feel less threatened by being passive rather than active when making important choices.

You know, you you don't want to make a mistake.

That's how you feel sometimes.

So you're you're you're just taking a step back, being afraid of making a mistake, and okay, God, I need to have God make this decision for me.

Because God doesn't make mistakes.

But what if God actually wants you to take responsibility for some decisions and seek out maybe not a blueprint, but something else?

His guidance.

A quote from the other book is it says, Life is wide open and filled with endless possibilities, but with this sense of opportunity comes confusion, anxiety, and indecision.

With everything I could do and everywhere I could go, how can I know what's what?

Right?

Over the last 40, 50 years, the world really opened up.

Uh you can apply to thousands of colleges in just in the United States.

I'm not talking about even going abroad, right?

Uh you can you can take a job uh in Australia or Dubai or anywhere in the world uh that you're allowed to come in as a foreigner, for example, right?

Uh you can be a Hungarian preacher preaching in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

How do you know what you know where you should be out of all these choices where you could be?

And let's talk about some of the other ones that you know that there are more even more important ones.

For example, who you should marry or whether you should marry or not.

You know, what if you pick the wrong person?

You know, divorce is incredibly painful.

At least if you believe that there is a right person.

Does God have a right person for everybody?

You know, we got eight billion people.

Right.

Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm just I'm just sweating your appetite.

I'm not giving you the answers just yet.

But many of us have these beliefs that come from traditional uh evangelical Christianity mainly, or the last couple hundred years, that believe that God ordained and designed a blueprint for everyone, and your job is to find it.

But most Christians come away incredibly frustrated by figuring it out and confused.

That's what this passage is, that's what this quote is about.

So today, we're just gonna get a sneak peek.

We're just gonna, we're just gonna, we're just gonna look around the corner and say, oh, this is an interesting topic.

I'm not gonna have the time to explain all the ways that uh that this has gone south and all the ways that this is actually what what are the biblical ways of doing this?

But we're gonna talk about this one topic today, the will of God.

Now that's that's in it, this in itself is a very, very challenging topic.

Kevin DeYoung says in his book, the will of God is one of the most confusing phrases in the Christian vocabulary.

Okay, I'm gonna read a few Bible passages.

And then we're gonna kind of discuss what do you think about this idea of God's will, uh, you know, and kind of explain the three for the different ways God's will is used in the Bible.

So the first passage is in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

This is written to Christians, followers of Jesus in Rome, verses 1 and 2.

It says, Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship.

And although in that context, he addressing brothers, but in he also means the sisters as well.

But that was the proper way of addressing a group of people.

He addressed the man in the room in uh 2,000 years ago.

He says, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Does the Bible talk about God's will?

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, what does it mean by it?

Does this passage explain in detail?

No, it leaves us kind of guessing in some ways.

Uh it explains some of it.

It explains some of the outer boundaries of God's will.

Like if you are not offering your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, is are you living in God's will?

No, because it clearly commands you to do that.

You know that when the Bible commands something, you know that's that that that command establishes some boundaries around God's will.

The Bible actually calls that uh the moral, uh not the Bible, but the theologians call that the moral will of God in some ways, because it creates boundaries about what's right and godly and what's not and what is ungodly.

Another passage in uh 1 John chapter 2, verse 15 to 17, again written to Christians.

1 John 2:15–17

Do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful men, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father, but from the world.

The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Does the Bible talk about the will of God?

Yeah, it's clear it is.

Does it explain what it is?

Not really.

It actually explains what it's not, loving the world and going after worldly things.

Now what that is again, it doesn't explain in detail.

I hope it doesn't mean the the you know watching New England Patriots football because football season is coming and I enjoy doing that.

I hope it doesn't mean that, right?

Because that would be sinful, but no, it doesn't actually be sad.

That would be very sad.

But but I know it, you know, when you read the Bible, it means certain things, what it is, me what it means to love the world and the worldly things, and what it means to actually love God.

Then here's probably one of the more radical and sobering passages about this in in uh part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus teaches this in Matthew chapter 7, verse 21 to 23.

Matthew 7:21–23

This is uh this is radical.

He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?

Then I will tell him plainly, I never knew you away from me, you evildoers.

Is there a will of God?

Yes.

Does the Bible teach about it?

Yes, but not in detail again.

But we when you read this, do you think it's important to do the will of God?

Yes.

Absolutely, because if you if you're not if you're not doing the king the will of God, you're not going into the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus says.

It's a prerequisite for that.

And for some reason, these things that seem to be very Christian-like things in today's Christianity, uh cultural Christianity, uh prophesying in Jesus' name, driving out demons, performing miracles, even, that that doesn't seem like it's it.

Because people were doing those things, but they were still not doing the will of God.

That's what Jesus means here.

So, what is this thing?

It's God's will stuff.

And how to find it and know it.

Uh, it it kind of feels like this, you know, this uh you guys play the game of life?

Yeah.

You know, it's where do you where do I go?

You have choices to make, and and and you know, it doesn't feel like there's a you make choices and sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't.

How do you know even?

You know, here's a quote from another author on this topic that I I thought I'll I'll read it in its entirety because it's so good.

It expresses this this challenge of figuring out God's wit God's will.

He says, conventional understanding of God's will will, God's will defines it as a specific pathway we should follow into the future.

God knows what this pathway is and he has laid it out for us to follow.

Our responsibility is to discover this pathway, God's plan for our life.

We must discover which of the many pathways we could follow is the one we should follow, the one God has planned for us.

If and when we make the right choice, we will receive His favor, fulfill our divine destiny, and succeed in life.

If we choose rightly, we will experience His blessing and achieve success and happiness.

If we choose wrongly, we may lose our way, miss God's will for our lives, and remain lost forever in an incomprehensible maze.

That ain't fun.

But that's that's this is what it feels like.

Yeah.

No fun at all.

Yeah.

Especially if you're not looking at from above, but you're just entering it through a door, and this is a corn maze, and you're there's only one of those exits on the other side, and they close the door behind you.

That's what it feels like.

Very difficult, yes.

And the only way out is just getting into all these dead end stuff, right?

And then come turn back around, and maybe this one will work, maybe that one will work.

And and there's there's strategies how to solve a maze like this, actually.

Uh, you know, and I I've studied some of those as uh in high school uh during my math classes, but uh but is this really what God wants?

Is is you know, that's if we believe in this traditional idea that God has one path through life for us, and we've got to figure out how to make all those choices right, then this is the experience that we will have.

Life will feel like this huge maze, and we don't know where we're going.

Uh, here's another quote from the book.

I referred to this in a little bit already.

It says, today we can go to school anywhere, major in hundreds of things, live almost any place, have a chance to personally meet thousands of single people in person, and millions more on the internet.

We have a gaggle of stores to choose from, dozens of restaurants, hundreds of careers, and millions of choices.

You know, it feels this way.

If God has one path through this maze of life that He ordained divinely for me, how do I even find this?

You know, having this many choices is actually really bad for us.

Uh I'm I'm sure if you're familiar with this concept of paradox of choice.

Uh supermarkets had uh, you know, they have these tasting, you go to BJ's or Costco, they offer a taste of uh of some kind of a thing.

So they they had two supermarkets, one offered six jam flavors to choose from, the other chose other had the offer of 24 jam flavors to choose from.

You feel like, oh, more flavors, more business.

No, it ten times as many people ended up buying this jam when it was only six flavors.

Because actually, you can actually go, oh, I like I like you know, orange marmalade or or strawberry jam.

You know, you you pick it and then and then you're good to go.

Honestly, that's the more choices we have in life right now, the more we feel like picking from 24 flavors of jam.

I don't know, do you want the blueberry, raspberry, or the blackberry current?

I mean, yeah, they're they all sound very same.

Which one is the right one?

Yeah, at least with the jams, there's not a right jam.

Because you whatever you like, that's what you like.

So, as Christians, we we have this question in our mind: what if I miss and don't find out what God's will is?

What if that happens?

Then here's some of our some of our reasonings.

Maybe God wasn't powerful enough to reveal his will to me.

Nobody believes that, right?

We think God is all powerful, so so we think that, oh, maybe, maybe, well, maybe to get this, then there comes up the next one.

Maybe that doesn't care about me as much.

But then he's all loving.

That doesn't work, right?

So if he's powerful and loving enough, then here's where we start blaming ourselves.

Maybe I'm in sin or I just deceived myself.

And maybe it's my my sinfulness is that's stopping me from actually seeing this path that God is outlining for me.

Or maybe I just don't understand what the Bible teaches well enough.

If I if I knew the Bible better, if I had a better understanding, uh then I I will I will be able to figure out because the the Bible is the lamp for my feet, right?

Let me let me have a different go at this and explain this idea of having three different ways we can talk about God's will.

And when we read the Bible, the will of God, we often we need to stop and think about what will of God is the Bible talking about here?

This is gonna help us a little bit.

Okay?

The three, let's start with the first one: God's sovereign will.

What do we mean by that?

God's sovereign will is God's secret plan that determines everything that happens in the universe.

Because God's will is secret, it doesn't directly affect our decision making.

God has a plan for the planets, the galaxies, you know, space.

He's got a plan for everything that was created.

He's got plans for grass to grow, for the seasons, uh, for the moon to go around the earth, for the tides.

Uh that that's that's all part of God's plan.

We whether that's living or inanimate objects, but none of those things have a free will.

None of those things were created in God's image.

So, how does God's sovereign will work out in our lives?

And there's a tension.

You know, because we're not robots, we've got agency, we make decisions, we have choices, because God gave those to us.

So, but God somehow even accounts for yours and my choices in working out his will in the universe.

Now, he doesn't leave us, we have consequences.

Uh, if you take a gun and point at somebody and pull the trigger, there are consequences coming out of that weapon.

And you might face consequences for committing murder.

There's there's consequences.

God is not going to stop consequences happening.

Gravity is true for you, and it's true for me.

Thank God, because we can walk.

Otherwise, we'd be just floating and wouldn't be able to go anywhere very much.

But we can also fall, scrape our knees, hit ourselves, break a bone.

But that's that's gravity.

So God has these rules He established in this world that govern his world, and He's He's actively present.

But this sovereign will is beyond our understanding.

It's beyond, we don't see it, we can study it and kind of kind of get a glimpse of how things work, but but the more you study, the more you realize this is God.

This is God.

You know, that's the the the the people that discovered uh the DNA molecule when they thought about how did how did life come about?

And they so they said it it's it's a miracle.

We don't know.

So so that's God's sovereign will.

Then there's God's moral will, which is God's revealed commands in the Bible that teach how men ought to believe and live.

What do you what you know that's That's his moral will.

And there's so much about the Bible about that, right?

That most of the Bible talks about this part.

When I said, you know, thou shalt not commit murder, that's the King James Version.

But most of us remember it that way because of years and years of people using that.

Or, you know, we can start asking why.

We can understand how those things cause harm and hurt relationships, and they're against love, as God wants people to love him and each other.

There's some other things, some other sins that we might not understand at first.

Why I shouldn't sleep with my girlfriend.

The Bible says that's sexual immorality and it's outside of God's moral law.

As an atheist, that wasn't clear to me when I became a Christian, and even looking back, understanding how it affected some of my relationship with women, it made sense to me, but I didn't start obeying it just because it made sense to me.

I started obeying it because I believed in God and I thought he knew better.

And I wanted to be within his moral will.

What your clothes should be made of, uh, how you should treat your animals, and uh how you resolve disputes and all kinds of stuff.

The New Testament has a lot less of these.

And those are actually most of the ones that we have are mainly matters of the heart.

Because Jesus says, don't just not commit murder, watch that you don't get angry with anybody in your heart.

Now, which one is harder?

Yeah.

But if you avoid getting angry with somebody, like uh you know, losing it with somebody, you'll probably avoid murdering somebody.

Right?

And you actually have better relationships, but following Jesus is so much harder.

He said, don't just not look at women, uh don't just sleep with women, you know, in that context, he's addressing men again, uh, committing adultery or or sexual morality.

Don't not even look at them lustfully.

You know, if you can, if you can, you know, get your heart right, your behavior will follow.

Following Jesus is more of a heart issue.

Cleaning the inside of the cup so the outside will be clean as well.

So God's moral will helps us to know what's right and what's wrong.

And we need that help.

Uh, and as you study the Bible, you probably understand it better and better.

Uh, you don't actually need to come up with uh elaborate rules like the Pharisees did to make sure that you don't even go close to God's you know that the border.

Deal with the heart, and you will not go close to the border.

Amen.

That's true.

Then the third idea is this God's individual will.

God's ideal, detailed life plan uniquely designed for each person.

God's guidance for decision making is given through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who progressively reveals God's life unto the heart of the believer through a variety of means.

That's a quote from one of these books, quoting this traditional idea of how we figure this out.

So that's that's God's plan for me, for Patty.

You know, maybe he had a plan for me to put on my my my white and blue checkered shirt today.

Maybe I got that right.

Maybe maybe he had the plan to put on my other checkered white and blue shirt.

I have like three of them.

They're a little different.

Maybe I got it wrong.

I'm wearing the wrong shirt, and because of that, some something will not come out about my life the way right?

I mean, is this how God thinks?

You know, uh I I have a I have some plans of doing certain things today.

Uh did I make those plans?

Did God reveal those plans to me?

I'm gonna go to BJ's to refill my my propane tank because we got some friends coming over tomorrow for uh uh a cookout.

Our picklebow friends.

Uh yeah, two o'clock.

You can show up.

Is that is that you know, does God want me to fill refill that propane tank today?

Yes?

Maybe, maybe not.

Well, if I want to have a I I this is my spare one, so I still have the other one I just started using, so I probably won't need this tomorrow, but I trained you well.

Yeah, you did.

Yeah, borderline preppers help people to be a little more prepared for emergency situations.

I had I had the uh the other day, I was we were we were cooking and and it ran out.

Uh oh.

So, but did God does God have that plan for my life?

We're we're meeting uh later with uh our uh our small leadership team in our church.

They think about our plans for the church in the future and and and do some time of praying together for the church.

That must be God's plan.

But is it God's plan that we're meeting today?

You know, how often should we meet?

That we have a service at 10 o'clock.

Do the people that decided to take a vacation for Labor Day, was that God revealed them to them that they do it this time?

You you you see where I'm going with this?

It's hard.

So there's this idea of there's God's moral will that is kind of a larger sphere, you know, if you're not going outside of that will, if you're not murdering, if you're not committing adultery or sexual immorality, or or you're not greedy, or you know, there's there's selfish, there's there's a bunch of stuff outside of God's moral will that we're trying to stay away from as followers of Jesus.

But is there that very little dot somewhere in the middle of that large area that we need to hit in order to find God's individual will?

Here's what Gary Friesen says.

If the traditional view is correct, there can be only one explanation.

The person seeking God's guidance must be spiritually defective.

The traditional view says it is important to make one's decisions with the larger circle of God's moral will, but finding the dot in the center, God's specific angel will is essential in making correct decisions in daily life.

But what if there's not a dot in the middle?

What if God does not come up, has not come up with a blueprint for your life?

What if he doesn't planned out the your life and then just shakes his head every other day when you make a mistake?

Oh, I gotta I gotta replan, I gotta plan B, and we're on plan Z, you know, 25, 84 now, you know, because you mess up all that.

Is that how God works?

That you're getting farther and farther away from his ideal plan for your life?

What if there is not a dot in the middle?

You know, God sometimes in the Bible does provide that specific instruction for different people.

But usually those times happen, those are those are God's extraordinary, supernatural way of coming into his creation and making sure that things are moving in a way that he likes to do them.

You know, uh I'm gonna run through this, I'm gonna skip this, get to Proverbs.

Some of the passages we read in the Bible seem like they teach this individual will for our lives.

But when you look at them, when you stop thinking about them, you can actually interpret them in a way that they actually don't teach those things.

But the traditional view kind of comes back in our back of our mind, and we're trying to figure this out.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.

I'll find a way through the maze.

This is great, right?

You just gotta trust the Lord.

But how?

This doesn't say anything about that.

You know, how long do you need to pray to actually figure out that that straight path?

The idea is if you submit under God and trust God, you will have a better life that's more uh in line with what God designed you to live.

Now, that doesn't mean it's easy.

A lot of Christians were killed for living that kind of a life, but they were happier and more fulfilled because they were living that life.

So making your path straight doesn't mean success, money, wealth, and happiness every cur around every corner.

Jesus did not have that.

How would we expect to have it all the time?

Proverbs 16:9.

Proverbs 16:9

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

Okay, so it kind of feels like that God is the big puppeteer that is actually moving you no matter what you're doing.

You're you're you're you're on strings and you're doing what, but that's not our experience.

God actually lets us mess up, He He lets us choose sin, He lets us rebel and go against Him.

So does He really determine our steps?

Or what it goes what this passage probably more teaches, and if you read the entire chapter 16 of Proverbs, you realize it teaches that even if we make plans, the success of those plans are really not up to us.

All the things need to work out for those plans to be successful, and God has a say in every part of our lives.

James has that.

You guys who you say, we're gonna go here and this this time, make money, do this business, you don't even know if you're alive that day.

You know, your life is like a mist.

It's here for a second, and so God determines a lot of things, but He is not a puppeteer.

Here's one in Isaiah 30.

Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more.

With your own eyes you will see them, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it.

It's probably not written that way, but I just enjoy making it that way.

But so a lot of people take this passage and go, like, see, the Bible tells us that God's gonna send some that was, and he's gonna tell me which which, you know, he's gonna kind of give me instructions in the back of my mind, going through the maze.

But this is actually completely taking this passage out of context.

This was during a time of uh of Ahaz's rule when the God's prophets need to be hiding.

And Isaiah is prophesying about a time when that rule is over, when the king of Israel is not no longer persecuting God's prophets and righteous people, so they can come out and actually teach people and tell them the way they need to be going.

That's what he's talking about.

He's not talking about you and I having somebody in the back of our minds, God or Holy Spirit, or some kind of a voice telling us.

You know, it also talks about you see them with your own eyes.

Right?

All right, let's keep moving.

This is probably a lot, this is my last one, actually.

Ephesians 5, verse 15 through 17.

Ephesians 5:15–17

Be very careful then how you live.

Find a path through the maze.

No, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because of the the days are evil.

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

You know, can you interpret this passage in a way that God has a very specific individual will for your life?

You probably can.

But does the entire book of Ephesians that talks a lot about how we follow Jesus as the crucified Lord of our lives, how we exercise grace in our relationships with people that are different than us.

The whole, if you read the whole book of Ephesians, it's not talking about any of those individual things.

It actually addresses a group of Christians.

Most of the you that you read in there are plural, not singular.

In our individualistic society, we can easily read the Bible with singular eyes instead of communal eyes a lot.

The Lord's will is that we would follow Jesus, love one another.

There's the Bible talks about it so much in uh in Ephesians, anyways.

Let me conclude with this quote from the book.

It says, For in order to arrive at the conclusion of the traditional approach, it is necessary to water down the biblical examples, and and next time we're going to look at some of those examples actually, and spice up the biblical teaching.

Examples are watered down to be less miraculous than they really are.

Biblical teaching must be spiced up to be more specific than it really is.

That's his conclusion, and I actually agree with him.

I believe that God does have a will for our life, but we don't have to live under this pressure of figuring out this exact design blueprint for my personal life that God created.

We're free to make choices.

How to make those choices?

We're gonna spend the month of September and October and maybe even longer talking about those.

How do you make some choices?

How do you spend your time, your energy, your money?

How do you make choices for relationships, friendships, romantic relationships?

How do you do those things based on what the Bible teaches?

So this is gonna be the Beyond the Blueprint sermon series.

A few questions for you to think about and contemplate, and then we'll take communion.

Have I studied this topic thoroughly?

Question number two Where do I draw the line for missing or making God's will?

How large is my dot on that on that image?

You know, some people some people think it's ridiculous when I brought up which shirt I should put on this morning, having a will of God.

But when you think about do I should should I marry this person or not, you know, those seem to be bigger.

You know, everybody kind of draws a line somewhere.

Where do you draw the line?

And uh, you know, hopefully as we study this out, you probably enjoy the freedom and the excitement that it comes from.

Uh just following God and letting you make your own choices within that larger circle.

How would it feel if there was no doubt?

Some people would feel very directionless because they've been thinking that God's been leading them through this maze.

Some people would feel more freed.

Uh, I'd love to know how you feel.

Some people are just confused.

Maybe that's the that's the result of my sermon today.

And I I apologize, I want to invite you back for next Sunday.

Yeah, give me a little more time to explain from the Bible what what are some of the things, ways that God reveals his will for us in that.

And I'm gonna actually finish with one of the passages that talks about God's will and God's leading in this.

In John chapter 10, verse 1 through 6.

John 10:1–6

This is Jesus uh explaining, uh, and this is one of those misinterpreted scriptures uh for people that believe that God is telling us, and we just need to listen to his voice.

He says, I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber.

The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all of his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

But they didn't even have a follow a stranger.

In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.

Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

You know, does Jesus talk to you in an audible voice as he leads you right now?

I I don't I don't see that in the Bible, that that would be the normative way of Jesus guiding people.

This is a figure of speech.

Do you hear some of Jesus' words as you read them in the Bible in the back of your mind?

I hope you do.

I hope it comes back to you again and again.

Love your enemies, you know, forgive as God has forgiven.

There's so many things that Jesus said the Bible records that we need to recon those things.

And we need to remember Jesus.

That's what communion is all about.

As we try to follow in his footsteps, uh listening to his teaching, uh, and doing our best to live out God's will as we do that.

When we take the communion, we we say yes again to following the voice of Jesus.

Let's pray together.

Dear God, thank you so much for Jesus, who has who lived in a way that fulfilled your will, uh, who brought us so many blessings through that life, God.

Help us to follow in his footsteps, to listen to his voice, his teaching, uh, as as we read it in the Bible, as we hopefully memorize it and fill our hearts and our minds with with uh with what he calls us to live and how we should should be following him.

Thank you for what he was willing to do for us uh through uh giving his life his his life on the cross.

Thank you for him being really the good shepherd, the one who cares for us and uh and one who who gave us everything we need for life and godliness through these amazing promises in the Bible.

Thank you for his blood that he shed for us, and then we can remember.

And in his name we pray.

Amen.