Lecture: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will (Part I)

I have work to do let me start with a New York Times report from August 18 2010 printed it off the title is what is it about 20-somethings how many of you are twenty-something you know some of you some of the seniors the rest of you will get there soon Lord willing the subtitle is why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up let me just read a paragraph it's happening all over and all sorts of families not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall it's a development that predates the current economic doldrums and no one knows yet what the impact will be on the prospects of young men and women on the parents on whom so many of them depend on society built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which FIDs kids finish school grow up start careers make a family eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school grow up start careers etc the traditional cycle seems to have gone off course young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes going back to school for lack of better options traveling avoiding commitments competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary and often grueling Teach for America jobs for stalling the beginning of adult life the 20's are a black box and there's a lot of churning in there 1/3 of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year 40% moved back home with their parents at least once they go through an average of 7 jobs in their 20s senior this is what you had to look forward to seven jobs in their 20s more job changes than in any other stretch two thirds spent at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married and marriage occurs later than ever the median age at first marriage in the early 1970s when baby boomers were young was 21 for women 23 for men by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men now they may not seem like a lot but that's five years in a little over a generation just another indication that your generation 20-somethings my generation thirtysomethings are finding it harder and harder to know what to do let me give you another article this is from a website called lark news.com it has fake Christian news is like the Christian version of the onion it's pretty funny no this is funny but I thought it was the title so this is fake but it could be real the title is Man 91 dies waiting for the will of God Tupelo Mississippi Walter Huston described by family members as a devout Christian died Monday after waiting 70 years for God to give him clear direction what he was to do in life he hung around the house and prayed a lot but just never got that confirmation his wife Ruby says sometimes he thought he had heard God's voice but then he wouldn't be sure and he'd start the process all over again Houston she says never really figured out what his life was about but felt content to pray continuously about what the Lord might have for him whenever he was about to take action he would pull back because he didn't want to disappoint God or go against him in any way he was very sensitive to always finding and remaining in God's will that was primary to him Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using his longtime friend Timothy burns he worked very well with wood and had a storyteller assigned to him I always told him take a risk try something if you're not happy but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down you've all heard of baby boomers their parents perhaps they're that generation born roughly in the late 40s 50s maybe early 60s maybe more my parents yours are a little younger but the baby boomers and since then people have liked to put on labels for different generations and so is this generation the Gen Xers the Gen Y the millennia what order we called well Robert Watson now who's a sociologist has dubbed a new term for 21 to 45 year olds he calls them us tinkerers it used to be that 30 seemed old and far away and now it's not uncommon that you will hear people talk about coming-of-age at 40 this generation are full of tinkerers any of you play with tinker toys your kids okay it's all right you've heard of tinker toys there's like a you know 80 years old or something so you know it's just not was in my generation but you play with these little sticks in these little spools and you put things together and you just kind of tinkered around and he says that's what our generation is full of now he says there's some pluses to that we're more flexible or willing to try new things were open to new opportunities but we don't settle down we don't make decisions we tinker and part of this translates into a delay in becoming an adult growing up now I remember distinctly the year 1985 none of you were born but I was 8 and I remember 1985 for two things one my family moves from the Chicago area to Grand Rapids and so we moved into a new house a new place I remember that and number two it was a year the Bears went to the Super Bowl the Chicago Bears fan and they had the Super Bowl shuffle and they were one of the best teams ever so I remember 1985 and I can remember my parents and I was eight my oldest son is now seven roughly the same age and for all I knew my parents could have been a hundred years old they were just my mom and dad and I never thought of anything of how old they were they were just parents and they were old but now I'd look back and I think my mom oh this can be recorded but you can figure out how old she is she was 35 at the time my dad I was 36 I'm 33 and I think either they were really young or I'm getting old but the thing that I recall now is that it just seemed very normal they just seemed grown-ups adults 35 36 they had four kids they had a job had a house had a career and here I was and they were there I know how old they were they were just parents there were adults and increasingly that is the exception rather than the rule to meet someone who is 35 and 36 and has all their kids and as a job and done with school so many people in your generation my generation are tinkerers just consider one statistic just one in 1960 seventy-seven percent of women and sixty-five percent of men completed all the major transitions into adulthood by age 30 these transitions included leaving home finishing school becoming financially independent getting married having a child so those you just kind of know Bible verses says you have to do all of those things and that if you don't do them by a certain age you're sinning but just those are kind of the major life transitions you know you're no longer a child you're an adult you finish school you're financially independent you're not relying on mom and dad you're on your own you're married you have a kid those major life transitions in 1960 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had completed those by age 30 by 2000 so 40 years later only 46 percent of women completed those transitions by age 30 and only 31 percent of men think about it is really a remarkable change it's really stunning one-third then of men roughly my age or to put another way two-thirds of men roughly my age have not completed these transitions into adulthood where they're financially independent they're done with school they're married they have a child you sort of that's what you think of an adult something has happened something has changed now I need to be quick to say there are lots of good reasons why someone may be in school past 30 lots of good reasons why why someone may not be financially independent especially in this economy I know I know godly hard-working men who love their families and want to provide for them and they just can't find work and some of them have them move back home with mom and dad so I understand that there are many challenges but that is not always the case if it doesn't automatically mean that you're a moocher and a lazy bum and a self-indulgent vagabond trying to find yourself it possibly could mean that it possibly could mean that it may mean that our unparalleled freedom to roam and experiment has not actually made us any wiser or more mature perhaps our free spirit needs less freedom and more faithfulness now what does all this have to do with the will of God or getting there I think this hesitancy to make decisions is both the fruit and the root that is that the result and the cause related to this search for God's will so here's what I mean this is the is this new change in young people not growing up not making decisions what some people have called adult all essence you have adolescence you have adults and now this is this middle ground of adult Oh lessons that lasts through the 20s and the 30s now how this relates to God's will first it is the fruit because nothing is settled anymore after high school or even after college I don't know what if they do this in California but in the Midwest this was very strange to my wife because she grew up on the East Coast in the Midwest when you graduate from high school you have a big open house and this is but your parents put on they get all the ham and buns and have all the the the punch with the sure and they open up the house and all your friends come and everyone in the high school has an open house and you pass out these little cards and you sort of take pride and you say look at I'm going to 60 open houses and you just hurt for two months straight you just mooch off of people every Friday Saturday and Sunday you just go to these things and it's sort of celebrating yes you've finished high school and I think that's a holdover from a day when that was kind of the last hurrah that's what you did you finished high school and you know maybe you were grew up on the farm or you now we're heading off and you were gonna be a teacher and you're done well who thinks high school is done anymore we all go to college or in college and and who thinks that you would actually trust a recent high school graduate to act like an adult sorry freshmen but it's just we don't expect very much of high school graduates so when you finish and you have all the whole world is open to you now you're you have all this indecision all this hesitancy and so enter into that comes a search for God's will because nothing is clear so you think god what am I supposed to do now that's the the fruit now that the root is that our search for the will of God I fear has become an accomplice in the postponing of growing up so too many of us have passed off our our passivity our instability our indecision and we have we have spiritual eyes that and said I'm waiting I'm searching for the will of God and so now instead of encouraging people to grow up say no know that you may be the most spiritual one in the room because you're waiting you're not you're not doing anything you're you're constantly hesitant and so we see not making up our minds and meandering through life as marks of spiritual sensitivity and the result is we become tinkerers when we should make a decision do something now how do we understand the will of God let me invite you to turn to some Bible passages if you don't have your Bible you can follow along and just so you know we're not going to go for three hours or two hours straight we will take a break because there's Donuts and I like donuts how do we understand the will of God the Bible talks about the will of God in at least two different ways on the one hand there is what we can call a will of decree a will of decreed God has ordained everything that comes to pass he decrees and it is so let me give you some verses Ephesians 1:11 in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so you hear that God works all things all things after the counsel of his will the fact that you're here is according to God's will it doesn't say just the big things or the little things all things God is working after the counsel of his will Matthew 10:29 2:30 are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father but even the hairs of your head are all numbered not even a bird falls to the ground apart from the will of God I praise God that he micromanages he's not just into kind of getting the big picture he knows even hairs on your head he know he not only knows birds falling to the ground not one falls apart from his will that God would ordain that to be he's a sovereign God Psalm 139 verse 16 your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there were none of them so God has written in his book all of your days before any of them come to pass he has sovereignly decreed what will become of us so our lives unfold according to God's providence I grew up in the Reformed Church we had to learn the Heidelberg catechism most of you probably not heard of the Heidelberg catechism from the 16th century I would commend it to you it's very readable it's very personal and here's what the Catechism defines as Providence Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God by which he upholds as with his hand heaven and earth and all creatures and so rules them that leaf and blade rain and drought fruitful and lean years food and drink health and sickness prosperity and poverty all things in fact come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand I think that's right all things we don't believe in fate they don't believe in chance no no don't freak out if somebody says good luck to you ok we know what they mean well relax but no we don't believe that things just happen because they happen all things the good things the bad things they come to us from God's gracious fatherly hand so that's the will of God's decree Augustine said the will of God is the necessity of all things by that he meant whatever God wills comes to pass and whatever comes to pass has been willed by God there's a lot of questions we could talk about there but let me move on so that that's that's one way the Bible talks about the will of God there's another way not a will of decree but what we might call a will of desire so let me give you some passages first John 2:15 through 17 do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes pride in possessions is not from the father but from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires but whoever does the will of God abides forever did you hear that the will of God is put opposite the desires of the world so you see the difference the first passages I was reading talking about the will of God is whatever happens God decrees it here same phrase but it's used differently now the will of God is is what God wants us to do how he wants us to live and so the first will of God can never be thwarted God does whatever he pleases but in this other sense God's will of decree we can disobey give you another example Matthew 7:21 not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my father again we see the will of God here is shorthand for obedience to God's commands in this sense not everyone does the will of God what he desires and what warrant do we have for foreseeing the will of God in these two different ways now admittedly there's no Bible passage that says here's one way to look at it in here is a second but there's there's at least one passage that hints at these two different aspects to God's will Deuteronomy 29:29 the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things that are revealed belonged to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law the secret things belong to the Lord our God the things revealed belong to us and to our children we're saying that there are some things that only God knows that's his will of decree but then there are things that he has told us about and those things are for us to understand so we have a will of decree we have a will of desire now here's the real heart of the matter does God also have a will of direction that he means for us to find out ahead of time that's probably why you're here will of God when you hear will of God you think direction what am I supposed to do Who am I supposed to marry where am I supposed to live so does the Bible teach that God has a will of direction for each of you that you are supposed to find out ahead of time and I want to suggest that the answer is no but let me explain yes God has a specific plan for your life yes we can be assured that he is working all things for our good yes looking back over our lives we will be able to trace God's ways sometimes we'll see oh now I realize why I got that job and not that job and I moved into that neighborhood but does God have a will of direction for our lives that he means for us to discover ahead of time that's that second half of the sentence is key yes God has a will of direction for each one of us he has a plan no he does not mean for us to find it out ahead of time so I'm not saying that God won't help you make decisions it's called wisdom and we'll at least talk about that briefly I'm not saying God doesn't care about your future I'm not saying he isn't in control of your life I believe in his Providence with with all my heart what I am saying is we should not think of God's will like a bull's eye or their analogy before you you have this bull's eye and there's maybe kind of that the 25 point ring of God's will and the 50 and then then there's right in the middle you know those fortunate people who can say I am in the center of God's will other people just have to settle for I'm kind of in the periphery of God's will I'm just sort of about 5 degrees off of God's will but some people are in the center that's how we talk about it or we think of it as sort of a tightrope Here I am I'm gonna graduate college and what do I do I've got to find God's will and it's walking on this this tightrope and if I make one wrong move and I get in the wrong program I move to the wrong state all of a sudden I've fallen off and I'm not in God's will anymore or a corn maze this shows that I spent time in Iowa they have corn mazes in California yes no not not in Orange County nan Santa Barbara so you go they let the corn grow up taller than you and then they they mow a path through it and it's a maze and sometimes we think of God's will that way and you get to a dead-end you could turn left or turn right and you think if I turn right I've just missed God's best for my life okay another example that won't relate to you but when I was a child we had these choose your own adventure books anyone remember there was a few little smiles so you to read these I love these books they were so fun then they had you know a lot of the pages had three sentences on them so it's a great way to just flow through books and you'd you'd be you'd have all the bad guys chasing you and then you'd get to this cliffhanger in the book and it would say if you want to get on the plane and fly to Brazil turn to page 15 if you want to hide out in this cave turn to page 72 and so you turn to 72 and you'd hide out in the cave and then it would you turn to those patients say that cave was a volcano you're dead when you're gone oh and some of us think of God's will that way we it's a choose-your-own-adventure novel and I have this decision to make in you want to sort of peek ahead to page 72 is this another volcano and I'm gonna die you make the wrong choice and you're goners now why are we so desperate to find out God's will let me give you five reasons then maybe we'll have some time for some discussion and then we'll take a break why are we so desperate to figure out God's will number one we want to please God we want to please God do you think if if there's a right job supposed to take I want to find it out if there's a place that I'm supposed to live that God has set aside for me I want to go there if I'm supposed to marry this person and this other person would be disobedience then I want to know that so there's a sincere desire God I just I want to please you I want to know what's right that's one reason but there are other reasons that are mingled in with that one number two some of us are by nature quite timid and hesitant it's true there are entrepreneurial sort of go-getter types and they may be less inclined to fret over God's will and some Christians need an encouragement to think before they act but many of us need an encouragement to actually act after we think I have known some impetuous Christians but in my personal experience I have known far more Christians who are not impetuous but are paralyzed by indecision and inactivity you see this in churches churches are most pathologically incapable of making decisions and and it's not just because there's layers of leadership in the organization part of it is it feels unspiritual to be sure of something and we come to this sometime in in our church where we have to make a decision now what's the first thing someone's gonna say we should really pray about this and of course we should but sometimes there's a sense unless you really agonize over this for weeks and months you you're not ready to make a decision but sometimes we don't have that luxury of life and I find most Christians feel like I need 100 percent of all the facts I need to know every possible contingency before I'm going to decide anything and so we're paralyzed we're we're timid we're cautious you see this in in kids sometimes they they quit Little League because they're not the best and they don't want to risk failure or the student who slacks off in school because they'd rather do poorly on their own then try to do their best and not meet everyone's expectations what I often think happens with with young people who just become slackers it's not you it's not always because they can't do it they often can but they have this standard I need to be an A student well I might actually be a B+ well that hurts to be a B+ when people want me to be an A so I'll just be a D and I'll set the expectations so low that people can't be disappointed we're just timid we're cautious were hesitant these may be the sort of Christians Paul had in mind in Thessalonians when he said admonished the idle encouraged the faint-hearted help the weak be patient with them all so some Christians need to be a little less faint-hearted I remember reading an article in The Economist after 9/11 and they were having an essay contest and I think was just an open-ended essay contest in the aftermath of 9/11 this person was writing about the nature of risk and how he was feeling like we were becoming as a country so averse to any risks and he had this great line he said someday when I'm old and borderline senile and I'm in the retirement home I hope I can say my life was about something racier than guessing right on the butter versus margarine conundrum you know which one is really good for you are eggs good for you or they're not good for you sugar no yes coffee yes sir I hope I hope I can say that my life had a little more edge than that so we're timid number three we are searching for perfect fulfillment in life let's be honest okay I don't on your homes and some of you made really hard stuff for most of us we have had it so good that we have started to think we ought to find heaven on earth and we think that we ought to have perfect fulfillment in every area of our life but if we study the Scriptures we find faith does not guarantee fulfilment Bruce Walt key an Old Testament scholar has this great line looking at Hebrews 11 you know Hebrews 11 the Hall of Fame of faith and he comments on on the first three men who are highlighted in Hebrews 11 he says you have Abel he had faith and he died Enoch had faith and he didn't die Noah had faith and everyone else died so just just faith by itself is not going to guarantee the outcome and yet so many of us and I think some of this is a generational thing we expect perfect fulfillment my peers and I and maybe this is you we were among the first ones to experience grade inflation we're absolutely livid if you don't get an A we ought to get an A because we tried hard we did our best at calculus we ought to do well because we got in touch with our feelings I had a philosophy class my senior year no not not in the philosophy folks here but most of the people in their class there were their philosophy types and I like to sort of think and ponder about things well this particular course was on logic which is much more like math and the people in the class were absolutely just aghast that that their answers were wrong oh no no that that I think this is right and the professor just kept saying I know you think it is but it's not you're not getting in a here I had another professor in seminary the start of each of his classes you know at the beginning of the semester he gave this very impassioned speech which I really didn't like at the time but looking back I think was very wise and the speech was something like this not all of you are a students and that's okay some of you are B students doesn't mean you're not worth as much some of you may get a c-plus some of you may choose to do some other things that mean you get a B+ instead of an a-minus said so don't come to me when you're upset that you didn't get the a you think you deserve not everyone is an A student well no one like to hear that well we maybe did because we thought I'm glad he's saying that to the other people in this class we just expect that we ought to be affirmed we expect that we ought to be fulfilled some of us have been prepped for elite schooling since before we could use the potty we've been on traveling soccer teams since before we knew we couldn't touch the ball with our hands and we've had all sorts of people praise us regardless of our accomplishments just for once I'd like to hear a graduation speech that says you know what you can't do everything you put your mind to you know what this is not the best graduating class ever frankly you're not even in the top half but I like you a lot but you never hear that it's rah rah go conquer and you can do whatever you want and your Westmont students and you can change the world and it's no wonder we expect people to affirm us for everything criticize us for nothing pay us for anything we want to do we figure I should be able to just graduate find a job that pays as much as my parents go right into the same standard of living that my parents had when I graduated from high school even though it took them 30 years to get there I ought to be there right now and on top of that bono should be proud we think that we want it all and so we want God to show us how to get there by and large my grandparents generation your grandparents generation did not think this way it would be a great homework assignment to talk to your grandma and grandpa you still have them around I did this when I was writing the book and you talked to especially that World War two generation and you asked them we're hey Gramps were you fulfilled in life and it it's like you're talking a different language because you are this was so good for me when I was in when a little town in Iowa lots of old farmers there you'd ask him these sort of questions where you fulfilled and they would just stare at you and say well I had something to eat I had a job and the Lord gave us children and had a good church and I never really thought about being fulfilled now again there's maybe some danger on that side that our grandparents generation could be maybe unreflective about life it made for some quietly unhappy marriages and they didn't talk about each other they didn't you know get into their emotions and there's some problems there but the good part was they said look I had a job I ate I lived I raised my family I went to church I was thankful one more what I want but we are looking for a perfect job that has that lets you live in a wonderful place with culture and diversity and yet you're close to the mountains and to the ocean and you have a family you have great sex and you have wonderful kids and you have the most amazing church and it's like John Piper preaching to you but it's only 60 people and it's real tight and you know everyone and the potluck food is always good and you just think God would you just tell me how to get there fourth fourth reason we search we are desperate for God's will we have too many choices I think I think this is the number one reason young people are desperate to find God's will we have too many choices our preoccupation with the will of God is in many ways a Western middle-class phenomenon over the last 50 years I haven't done an exhaustive study but it would be interesting to go back prior to 50 years ago and see if you could find these will of God books when I wanted to do this one just do something the publisher was skittish at first that I don't know there are so many will of God books that been written 56 certainly a hundred years ago I don't think he would have found it because what you have people grew up probably on a farm and they maybe went to school through eighth grade maybe through high school and then when they were done what were their gonna do they were probably gonna work on the farm maybe the woman would be a teacher there was a few other things they could do but they were gonna probably stay in the town that they were born and who would they marry I think I once heard this statistic that a hundred years ago you had roughly maybe seven to twelve eligible people that you might realistically marry people about your same age that you would come in contact with and you weren't related to that's always an important piece not related to well think about it now you think they're seven that's well people in this room and you have over a thousand people here and then you got Facebook and you got the Internet and you you gonna meet just thousands of people and we can go to school anywhere and major in dozens or hundreds of things and live in almost any place we want and so many of the old people I talked to they started working when they were teenagers and they did just whatever they could find they worked for their dad or they worked in the harvest and ironically they got more done because they had fewer options but now we have almost limitless options before us and because of those hundreds of restaurants and thousands of careers we are desperate for somebody god could you tell us what we're supposed to do it's a really great book called the paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz he's not a Christian as far as I can tell but it's a good book and he talks about a trip to his his local moderately sized grocery store not even the the uber sam's club or something just a moderately sized grocery store and he found there 285 varieties of cookies 13 sports drinks 65 box drinks 85 kids juices 75 iced teas 95 types of chips fifteen kinds of water what water fifteen types of water eighty different pain relievers forty options for toothpastes 150 lipsticks 360 types of shampoo 90 different cold remedies 230 soups I like it thinking about two soups I would want to eat 75 instant gravies 275 varieties of cereal 20 two types of frozen waffles 60 four types of barbecue sauce that's unbelievable that's why my wife doesn't let me go shopping oh wait hon I want to help you out yourself can I just go to the store you you don't know what you're doing Kevin I said I can I can get it right just get some baby food no it needs to be harvest or Gerber's or step two or step three and I want this sighs there's so many choices that husbands are just absolutely clueless have you ever taken someone from the 2/3 world out to eat at an American restaurant we had a missionary from our church from knees hair which me share is one of if not the poorest country in the world and we took him to Applebee's not exactly like the the best cuisine in the whole world you probably don't even allow him in Santa Barbara but where I'm from it's a nice treat to go out to Applebee's so we went there and admittedly he didn't speak English very well and try to help understand but you could tell it was that the menu was just too much to take in and he finally he just said I want meat okay we'll get to a steak and then the the way I said he's gonna have a steak how does he want it cooked so how do you want it cooked this so doesn't move just he wants a steak then when they came back and I don't know Applebee's was this fancy they said sir would you cut into your steak please you know I wanted to see if it was made to his liking and he just picked up his knife and what am I supposed to do just cut into your steak see if we've prepared it correctly it starts kind of waving around the knife said I'm sure it'll be fine I was talking once with another missionary who was an American who was coming back from the mission field and he said you know it is one of the hardest things about coming back to the States there are too many salad dressings so I go to restaurant and I just say I'll have a salad dressing yeah what would you like balsamic vinaigrette or ranch or a light ranch with creamy ranch or ranch vinaigrette full stomachs or you know there's 15 different things I don't know just whet something that makes Aled taste good it doesn't taste good on its own there's so many choices and so it's no surprise that we would we would think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence we'd always be pondering well what should we do what might be nicer the word decide etymologically comes from the latin word des adere which means to cut off a decision is cutting off this helps explain why decisions are painful this is the great paradox we think the land of opportunity you can do anything you want but if we're honest decisions are painful because if you can do a B C or D that's just four decisions if you say yes to a you are by implication saying no to B see indeed so every decision feels bad more than it feels good well I just said yes to the internship but that means I'm not going to school and I'm not trying out this job and I'm moving to Chicago Hey so you said no to a whole bunch of things you said yes to one you've cut off all those other things and so what happens we become very passive hesitant and it feels better to not decide anything I haven't really I haven't said yes to a but I haven't said no to B C or D and so we end up not making decisions or if we do make a decision or we end up like my wife with shoes I love my wife she never likes the shoes that she brings home first of all I don't understand why women like shoes but I'm just learning that they do and I try to tell my wife it's not what guys are looking at okay the shoes but I okay it's important to you you want you want the shoes not not what I'm asking for it but okay you want your butt to go in and variably I don't know I think I don't like this color I should have got do you think I should I got the other one do you think do you think these others a little bit I'm just sort of in my mind just kind of flipping a coin yes or no yes you don't even know what I'm asking no I don't know I can't make a decision about shoes I swear these they I don't know what that's where socks and that feels nice and we're like that with big decisions we get buyer's remorse we get regrets so we make a decision I mean I don't know I shouldn't maybe I shouldn't have done that and I missed out on on God's best and so we end up our Liberty feels more like bondage and our decision-making feels like pain instead of pleasure that's 4/5 let me give you one more reason we are desperate to find God's will because many of us the truth be told are cowardly remember the story of Esther Mordechai her uncle or cousin or whatever the relation was Mordechai finds out that there's this plot to kill the Jews and of course Esther is a Jew and Mordecai as a Jew and Esther is the Queen and so he gives his famous speech and and she says well I can't do it no you can't just come to the king he has to give you the golden scepter he has to beckon you to come if you just come to the King unannounced unbidden you can lose your head it's against the law and he says well first such a time as this and and she's finally persuaded and you remember what Esther says she says she will go to the king even though it is against the law and then she says these words and if I perish I perish now that's a man a woman if I perish I perish he knows what she did not do Mordecai good point let me sit on this for about a month and lay out a couple fleeces let me see what I kind of just if it feels right or you know what Mordecai I don't really have a I really feel like peace with this and I feel like gods maybe telling me that I don't want to be killed and so I'm not gonna do it no she didn't do anything she's not looking she's not expecting God to give her a sign she's not expecting that God will tell her that everything will turn out right isn't at the root that's why we want to know God's will God tell me what to do so I can be assured that this step will turn out well for me and it will lead to pleasure and not to pain and that my life Lord just that my life will turn out fine and God does not give us that assurance he promised us he will work everything according to his will he promises that he will make us more and more like Christ which is the best good but sometimes we have to say Lord if I perish I perish I may die there's no there's no writing in this guy so we need we need courage we need to be willing to risk we can risk because God doesn't risk some people like to say well God is a risky god no God knows everything he doesn't take risks but because he knows everything and superintendent obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live because showing us the future is not God's Way his way is to speak in the scriptures transform us by the renewing of our minds he does not mean to give us a crystal ball he means to give us wisdom and so we should stop expecting that God would show us the future and remove all risk from our lives and we should start looking to God and have confidence that even if he does not tell us the future we believe that he holds the future and so we can have courage

Channel: Westmont College

Views: 17,600

Rating: 4.826087 out of 5

Keywords: westmont, college, chapel, kevin, deyoung

Id: rQl-O9_nxKc

Length: 46min 38sec (2798 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2010