Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Decision Making By the Book, Part 8 of 20
TEXT: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).
IDEA: Where can I go to learn God's will for my life?
PURPOSE: The Bible is all-sufficient, giving us all we need for all our decisions that we may be all that God designed us to be.
As we've talked this week about some misleading ways people use to know God's will, you may have begun to wonder whether God guides us at all. You might think. "If those people believe God guides us, I haven't seen any evidence yet!"
Let's be clear about one thing. Christians have guidance. It is unambiguous and direct. It's from God, it's for us, and it's found in the Bible.
Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16-18 that all Scripture is "God-breathed" or inspired by God. This means that the Bible is to God what breath is to a man or a woman: it comes out of His innermost being. Then Paul tells us that this God-breathed volume is profitable for four things:
It's profitable for teaching us what we ought to believe.
It's profitable for rebuke—it tells us when we've gone wrong.
It's profitable for correction—it gets us back on the path again.
It's profitable for instruction in right living.
All of this is designed to do one thing—"to thoroughly equip the man or woman of God to do every good work."
This is important: this God-breathed book is not only inspired, but when we understand and apply it correctly, it is all-sufficient, giving us all we need for all life's decisions that we might be all that God wants us to he. For us to live according to the Scriptures is to live in the will of God.
But while the Bible is sufficient to guide us, the problem we face is that many of our important decisions aren't addressed in the Bible.
No chapter is devoted to which college we should attend.
No passage tells us which person to marry or which job to take.
We may want to ask, HOW can a Book 2,000 years old help us today?
The Bible teaches us, for example, that God is working out His will: He is sovereign in the affairs of nations. He works all things according to His purposes. God is at work in the world and in our lives.
The difficulty with God's sovereign will is that we don't always see Him at work. It is hidden, removed from our observation. But we know it's there.
In this life our wills and God's will are strangely partnered. Peter spoke of this mystery when he preached at Pentecost:
"This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge: and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead" (Acts 2:23-24).
Peter acknowledges that when the people of Jerusalem crucified Jesus, they made their own choices:
The Roman soldiers chose to follow orders and drive spikes into His hands.
The religious leaders chose to egg the people on to ask that Barabbas be set free and Jesus crucified.
There were all kinds of choices made that day. All these independently made choices were subsumed into God's infinite will and purpose. If we had been there on what we call Good Friday, we would never have called it good. We would have called it Bleak Friday, for it was the day that the best man ever known was nailed to a Roman execution rack. But Peter tells us that bleak Friday was merely a prelude to glorious Sunday when Christ rose from the dead. That is the sovereign working of God. The people of Jerusalem were responsible for their choices, but through them God brought His best.
We need to remember that when we talk about making decisions.
God is not at the mercy of our choices.
God is not limited to what we decide to do.
But in God's sovereignty, He can work in our choices, through our choices, and in spite of our choices to accomplish His will.
We may not choose to help.
We may not be able to see.
But God is at work in the affairs of people and nations to bring about His sovereign will.
