To teach on the will of God feels like such a monumental task. To simply think about the will of God can, after a short while, start to feel overwhelming. How much trouble do we have in discerning our own heart? How difficult can it be to understand the heart, the will, of your spouse, or your parents, or your children? Now, we can understand Paul’s question, "For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? "- Romans 11:34

Just how grand is the will of God? God is so much greater than we are, and he is omnipotent, and omniscient, and omnipresent, how can we know his will? It is in Paul’s second reflection on this that we find an answer to help zero in on this, 1 Corinthians 2:16, "For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

Now we have something we can work with, at least, it seems more approachable. In Christ we have the presentation of Almighty God in such a way that we can understand God’s thoughts, feeling, and will for us. To really know the will of God and live in it is to set our own heart on following Jesus, learning him, growing in the knowledge of him!

The goal of our lives should be that our will would become immersed and ultimately integrated into the will of God. Yet, there is a great blockade to that for many, and Jesus calls it out in this text, it is either the one who is rich in this world and broke before God, that is the rich man of the parable, or it is those who are not abundantly wealthy but who are driven by anxiety over whether or not they will have enough, and that is the rest of the text. I believe an honest assessment of our life would turn up that we are often a combination of the two. This consumer driven culture which we have grown up in has taught us that our money is ours, we worked hard to earn it, and we should enjoy it; and so we spend, we buy more, we accumulate and, like the man in the parable, we do not stop to think whether or not it is God’s will, we want it, it is our will, and that is enough.

We are learning about God’s will; how to know it, how to live in it, and so, what does all of this teach us about the will of God? There are two key places in the text, and therein, two key truths to take away:

1. Our Lives Do Not Belong to Us! (vv.20-21)

2. Our Life’s Purpose is to Pursue the Glory of God with All Our Heart (vv.31-34)

There are many phrases and statements made around church which we have heard thousands of times but of which many of them are not clear in our minds. One such phrase is, “The Will of God.” We talk about “Doing the will of God,” and we pray for “God’s will to be done.” But does it not seem that for many of us, those are statements made around church but perhaps not translating into practical living in our day to day lives?

In this message Pastor Mike begins a journey in learning what it really means to know and live in the will of God.

How many times we hear statements like this, “He was a fine Christian man,” or “She was such a dear Christian lady,” but what do those statements mean? Paul was not propagating Christianity, but Paul was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ! And the life which we have been called to, redeemed for, is not a life of a religious system, not a life of conformity to dogmas and creeds, but we have been saved and born into a new life of being one with Jesus!

We commonly understand Psalm 14:1 to be the most direct address to what we call atheism in all the Bible. David writes here, “It is a truly foolish person who believes that there is no God.” This word fool, in the Hebrew, is the word nabal, “Nabal” means folly, or foolishness; it is a person who is lacking in understanding. The word folly originally meant someone weak in intellect, which is ironic when you consider that much of the force behind atheism seems to come from the world of academia and institutions of higher learning.

But what do we call the person who says they believe in God 100% but outside of that statement and perhaps church attendance, they live as if God is not real in their lives?  What about those of us who believe in God 100% and want to know God and love him and be faithful to him, but there are times, or certain aspects of our life, or some places we have not surrendered to God, and so, we are living, at least at times, as what we might call Practically Atheists!

Now, we may say, “Yes, yes, only a fool doesn’t believe in God.” And that is what the scripture says, but the operative word for us this morning is this word “Believe.” The question I want to draw down on this morning, and more to the point is, “Do You Believe?” And do I believe? Or are we Practically Atheists?

In Ephesians 6 we have this well-known passage on the Armor of God, and we emphasize the armor but may have overlooked the most critical part of this entire passage, and that is found in verse 18, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

There is nothing more essential to being strong in the Lord than our life of prayer! The armor cannot even be put on without prayer. The weapons of our warfare which are not carnal, they are mighty through God (2 Cor. 10:4), which means that only by our engaging God in prayer do we have the necessary strength and skill to use the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith.

Friends of God are not those who get everything right, but those who deeply long to know God, to know His righteousness and to live in it. To be a faithful friend to God means to be full of faith (faith-full)! It means to believe God, to trust him completely, and to love him and follow him with all the heart, soul, mind, and body. Before I can be true to my wife, I must be true to God. Before I can be true to my children, I must be true to God. Before I can be true to this church, I must be true to God. Before I can be true in any way, I must be true to God.

In the church today, Christianity is popular, we may want to be with other Christians, be like other Christians, but true discipleship is considered weird, it is actually not wanted in most churches today.  So, that leads us to the question, what is true discipleship? What happened to it? How do we get back to it? And it was in reading this passage again this morning that I was seized by the truth Jesus teaches, a truth I believe have been glossed over and neglected in modern times. We must go into this and hear.

Sermons from the pulpit of McLeansville Baptist Church

Sermons from the pulpit of McLeansville Baptist Church