http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15449790/how-the-word-of-man-becomes-the-word-of-god
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Do the Will You Know: The First Step for Further Guidance
What is the will of God for your life? An air of mystery surrounds the question. God’s will can seem elusive, ambiguous, difficult to discern — a land without maps.
Is this the right job for me? Would God have us get married? Should our family move to the city or the suburbs? Is God leading me to full-time ministry?
Such questions send us searching for clarity — praying, thinking, pro-con listing, often second-guessing. What is your will, O God? And how do I find it? Depending on your charismatic convictions, you may do more: wait for impressions, read signs in your circumstances, lay out a fleece. I once flipped a coin.
We understandably agonize over such decisions. What job we take, whom we marry, where we live — these choices change the course of our lives. Yet because of their very importance, they also can distract us from the primary ways Scripture speaks of God’s will. Like hikers who pay more attention to each new fork in the path than to their compass, we can easily lose our basic sense of direction by fixating on one decision after the next.
Thank God, then, that in all our most difficult decisions, we have a compass:
Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9–10)
This familiar prayer may not offer the direction we long for — an unmistakable nudge, a whisper from heaven — but it does offer the direction we most need.
‘Your Will Be Done’
“Your will be done” is a prayer with levels and layers of meaning, a multiple-story petition.
On one level, we ask, “Your will be done on earth.” In the broadest sense, the prayer settles for nothing less than a transformed, transfigured earth — an earth where God’s revealed will is no longer ignored, neglected, or despised, but done with the same angelic zeal, the same seraphic joy, as his will is done “in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
On another level, we ask, “Your will be done — not mine.” Here we follow the example of our Lord Jesus, who not only taught us to pray these words, but prayed them himself: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). We who follow Christ will never come close to the agony of this moment; like Peter, James, and John, we ever remain on Gethsemane’s edge. But in our own anguished hours, “Your will be done” is likewise for us an opening of the hands, a bending of the knees, a bowing of the head to God’s painful yet perfect plans.
And then, on a third level, we ask, “Your will be done in me.” As wide as earth and as high as heaven, the prayer nevertheless turns back to us, bidding us to ask not only that God’s will would be done everywhere out there, but also everywhere in here — right now, today, in every part of my life.
Which returns us to our beginning question: What is God’s will for my life, and how do I walk in it? Beginning from the Sermon on the Mount and broadening from there, we might answer with two simple sentences: Do the will you know. Discern the will you don’t.
Do the will you know.
We’ll see in a moment that Scripture gives direction for discerning God’s will in unclear situations. But as we’ll also see, Scripture gives a fundamental prerequisite for such discernment: attentive obedience to what God has already revealed. Doing the will you know is necessary for discerning the will you don’t.
“Doing the will you know is necessary for discerning the will you don’t.”
And not only necessary, but far more important. Consider the words of Jesus in the chapter after the Lord’s Prayer: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Heaven hangs on doing the will of God. And the will of God here is no hidden key, no secret whisper. As Jesus says three verses later, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man . . .” (Matthew 7:24). In the most basic and crucial sense, the will of God is found in the words of God.
Imagine a man who, after hearing Jesus’s sermon, says to his friend, “That’s all well and good, but I still wish I knew God’s will for my life.” His friend would be right to respond, “Weren’t you listening? God just told you his will for your life! Embrace poverty of spirit, meekness, and peace. Let your light shine. Kill anger, lust, lying, and vengeance. Pray and give and fast in secret. Don’t worry; seek the kingdom. Enter the narrow door. Build your house on the rock. That’s God’s will for your life.”
How many of us, like this will-of-God seeker, wonder what job we should have while neglecting godly diligence in our present job? How many seek his will for whom to marry while not pursuing a biblical vision of singleness in the meantime? How many ask God where they should live while overlooking neighbor love and the local obedience Scripture so clearly prescribes?
Far better to know and obey this will, always available and ever clear, than to have the greatest situational insight and neglect this will. Or as the apostle Paul might say, if we discern the right decisions to make, and if we receive all impressions and leadings, and if we gain all guidance, so as to choose the right paths, but do not obey the plain words we already know, we are nothing (Matthew 7:21).
Discern the will you don’t.
At the same time, the very Scriptures that give us God’s clear will also tell us to seek his unclear will. “Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord,” Paul tells the Ephesians (Ephesians 5:10). And then he writes in Romans,
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
And now we see why hearing and doing the will of God we know is the prerequisite to discerning the will of God we don’t. Right discernment depends not merely on a clear mind or an intelligent mind, but on a transformed mind — a mind, John Piper writes, “that is so shaped and so governed by the revealed will of God in the Bible, that we see and assess all relevant factors with the mind of Christ.”
We can see this discernment process at work even in the life of Jesus. In Luke 4, for example, Jesus decides to leave Capernaum to “preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well” (Luke 4:43). The decision was by no means a simple one: the people of Capernaum didn’t want Jesus to leave (Luke 4:42); neither did his disciples (Mark 1:36–37). But Jesus knew his Father willed for him to preach the gospel broadly (Luke 4:43). And so, after spending time in a desolate place (Luke 4:42), he applied the clear will of his Father to an unclear situation through patient, prayerful discernment.
Let the emphasis land on patient and prayerful. Discernment often will not come easily or quickly. Gathering the appropriate words God has spoken, understanding how they relate to our present situation, rightly weighing all relevant factors and friendly counsel, praying for wisdom all along the way, and obeying what you know in the meantime — this is no small task. But it is God’s normal method of guiding us through the hundreds of moments when we stand before two (or more) paths, none of which has a sign that reads, “Go this way.”
“In a world without maps, our best compass is an increasingly Christlike will, informed by an increasingly renewed mind.”
In a world without maps, our best compass is an increasingly Christlike will, informed by an increasingly renewed mind.
Led by the Spirit?
Some, at this point, will wish to say more — and understandably so. “What about the leading of the Spirit?” they might ask. “What about dreams and visions and impressions?” Three responses are in order.
First, at times, the Spirit does indeed lead his people in a more manifestly supernatural manner. In the life of Jesus, we might remember when “the Spirit . . . drove him out into the wilderness” after his baptism (Mark 1:12). Even more clearly, we might recall how God led Peter to Cornelius, and then led Paul and his team to Philippi, through visions (Acts 10:9–16; 16:9–10). And so he may sometimes lead us.
Nevertheless, these instances of striking guidance take place within the larger framework of doing and discerning. The Spirit came to Jesus in baptism (Mark 1:9–11), to Peter in prayer (Acts 10:9), to Paul on mission (Acts 16:6–8) — in other words, he met them in the midst of their present, intelligent obedience. Unless we too are willing to follow the Spirit’s more typical paths, we cannot expect him to lead us down unusual paths — nor can we assume we would recognize those paths or rightly walk them.
Second, such manifestations of the Spirit may prove dangerous if we rely on them too much. Those who say, “Lord, Lord,” in Matthew 7 did not lack powerful spiritual experiences; they did lack obedience to God’s clear will (Matthew 7:21–23). Ironically, some who are most eager for a spectacular method of finding God’s will can be most prone to neglecting the ordinary opportunities for pleasing God right in front of them.
And third, the renewed mind’s rigorous application of the Scriptures to unclear situations need not sidestep the Spirit’s ministry — not when done humbly, prayerfully, and God-dependently. In fact, as J.I. Packer writes, “The true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us” (Knowing God, 236). The Bible is no dead letter, but the living breath of the living Spirit. Those who listen well to Scripture listen to him.
Decisions from Our Knees
Lest we forget the obvious, “Your will be done” is a prayer, a request that God would do in us what we cannot do in ourselves. Apart from him, we cannot know the will he reveals, we cannot obey the will we know, and we certainly cannot discern the will we don’t know. And so, we bow our heads, lift our hands, and say, “Our Father in heaven, . . . your will be done” (Matthew 6:9–10). The best decision-making happens from a kneeling soul.
In all your decisions, then, don’t neglect to do the will you already know. Then, with that will clear in your mind and alive in your life, do the hard work of discerning, as best you can, what might please God most in your work, your relationships, your home. Weigh the factors; seek counsel; view the matter from several angles. And through it all, ask him again and again for his good, pleasing, and perfect will to be done in you.
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The God Who Turns Hearts to God
Audio Transcript
In 1 Kings 18, we read the amazing account of God’s defeat of Baal’s prophets. The story is unforgettable. At the time, Israel was torn. Should it follow Baal or follow the living God? As it stood, the people of Israel were “limping between two different opinions,” as Elijah said (1 Kings 18:21). So there came an ultimatum. God’s people would climb Mount Carmel to witness two sacrifices laid out: One sacrifice with a bull would be set on logs by Elijah. Another bull on logs would be assembled by the prophets of Baal. Equal offerings. Then the prophets would call down divine fire to light the sacrifices. Baal’s 450 prophets went first and called out and called out. Crickets. Nothing from their god.
Then Elijah, God’s lone prophet on the scene, set up his sacrifice, had it doused with water three times, and then called for God to act, as we read in 1 Kings 18:36–39. In the words of Elijah:
“O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
Powerful. So what’s the takeaway? We heard it in verse 37. Here it is again: “that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Verse 37 needs to be thought about, and that’s what we will do today. A few moments later, after this dramatic event, Elijah goes up to Mount Caramel. Here’s Pastor John to explain.
Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:42–46)
Elijah didn’t limp. You don’t limp when you follow Jesus. I don’t care if you’re in a wheelchair: you don’t limp when you follow Jesus; you run. He ran before the rain. He didn’t limp; he didn’t hobble — he ran. Now that’s the story.
Ruler of Every Heart
Let’s step back and ask, So what’s the main point — the one that everything else is supporting and leading toward? And I mentioned as we were going that I think it’s in verse 37, because Elijah himself says, “This is what I want the people to know.” Not all stories are this clear, but the prophet himself opens his mouth and gathers the whole thing together and says, “God, make them know this. Make them know this about all this.” So what is that? Verse 37: “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know.” Know what? Two things:
“That you, O Lord, are God.” You are God. You’re not an idea, you’re not a memory, you’re not a tradition, you’re not a religion, you’re not a projection of our imagination, you’re not a force, you’re not an archetype, and you’re not a symbol. You are God — the living, active, fire-sending, sin-hating, idolatry-destroying, prayer-hearing, personal God. That’s number one: make them know, let them know, you are God. That’s really the basic need of all of us.
“That this people may know . . . that you have turned their hearts back.” The NIV says, “that you are turning their hearts.” Cause your people to know this. This is where I’m landing here. Cause these men to know this. I think that’s God’s will for you from this text. It should be my prayer for you: I pray that these men, from this story, would discern that you, the sovereign God, are the one who turns human hearts to God.“You are God. You’re not an idea, you’re not a memory, you’re not a tradition, you’re not a religion.”
So their hearts had betrayed God, spurned God, belittled God, devalued God, loved other things more than God, and this entire event on Mount Carmel is aiming to make God’s people know that if anybody turns to God, God turned them to God. That’s the point of the story. So when the people cry from the heart, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God,” God did that (verse 39). God did that. It’s true, the Lord rules fire. It’s true, the Lord rules the flesh of the bull, the wood on the altar, the rocks. He rules the rain — he makes it rain when he wants it to rain.
But this text is mainly about how God rules the heart. He turns hearts. The Lord rules the human heart: “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back” (verse 37). “Know this, Israel.” He doesn’t want to just say it’s a fact. He wants them to know it. He’s praying that God would cause them to know it.
God Must Do It
There must be a value for you this afternoon, tomorrow, ten years from now. There must be a value for you to know this: that if anybody’s heart turns to God, God has turned the heart. There must be a value, a thrilling value, for you to know this, that Elijah would pray it as the capstone of the event: “Let them know this.”
“If anybody turns to God, God turned them to God.”
I mean, there are people all over the world who would say, “Wow! Fire falling from heaven, consuming bulls and water and wood and stones — that’s impressive!” Elijah didn’t pray that they would know that; he prayed that they would know, if your heart, at this moment, is getting really serious about God, God is doing that.
As an American who grew up in the South, where a kind of decisionism was so dominant and rampant, I never heard this emphasis in my childhood — never heard it. When it came to a heart moving from unbelief to belief, you do that. You do that. Nobody stressed, “God, do it. Do it in this room. If you don’t do it, it won’t be done.” That’s what Elijah is pleading for.
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The Joy of Reading Revelation: Seven Reasons to Study the Apocalypse
Let’s be honest: Revelation can be an intimidating book. Because of that, some of us have avoided Revelation, deeming it to be too difficult to interpret and understand, too controversial, or too scary. Perhaps we’ve ignored it because we have assumed the book is only about the future, with nothing “practical” for us today.
The truth is, while the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelation presents some challenges to us as modern readers, it also provides gifts of insight and understanding to those who are willing to engage with it. Revelation is a letter written to gird us for faithful allegiance to Christ as we wait for his return. And that is encouragement we all need!
“I want to invite you to study Revelation for the joy of it.”
I want to invite you to study Revelation for the joy of it. And since Revelation is full of sevens (seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, and many more sevens), it seems appropriate to provide seven reasons Revelation is a joy to study.
1. Revelation is a message from God sent to us.
It is amazing that the God who made the world has condescended to speak to us in human language. In the Bible, the God of the universe tells us what we most need to know. And there is something special about the way his message in the book of Revelation is delivered to us. At the outset, we’re given its specific chain of delivery:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Revelation 1:1–2)
What John wrote down in the book of Revelation came from God the Father, to Jesus Christ, to his angel, to John, who then wrote it down — first for the seven churches who originally received it, and also for all who were then or would become partners in the “the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). God has a message for you in the book of Revelation that you don’t want to miss!
2. Revelation opens our eyes to see the risen and glorified Christ.
Most of our mental pictures of Jesus have been shaped by the Gospels. In our mind’s eye, we see him as a baby in a manger, standing on the hillside teaching, hanging on the cross. But in the book of Revelation, John is given a vision of Jesus as he is, right now, today. As John was suffering imprisonment on the island called Patmos, he heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him, felt Jesus reach out and touch him, and saw Jesus in all his resurrected, ascended glory (Revelation 1:9–20).
We don’t want our understanding of Jesus to be confined to the years of his earthly humanity — glorious as those Gospel pictures are. The Jesus we call out to and commune with day by day is the risen and glorified Jesus. Seeing him as he is now, through John’s vivid record of his vision, builds our trust in him, heightens our attention to him, and expands our joy in him.
3. Revelation provides a picture of Jesus’s presence with us.
In Revelation 1, John sees Jesus “in the midst of the lampstands” (verse 13). We’re told that the lampstands represent the churches (verse 20). When those who first received this letter gathered to hear it read to them, it must have deeply encouraged them that Jesus was not standing off at a distance while his followers suffered for him. He was right there with them, walking in the midst of them, keeping their fire for the gospel burning, correcting them, watching over them, strengthening them.
We need these same reminders, don’t we? What a joy to have this picture Revelation provides of Jesus standing in the midst of his people. In the midst of suffering for our allegiance to him, as we face temptation to be unfaithful to him, we can be assured that he is with us, providing what we need for patient endurance.
4. Revelation enables us to see this world from heaven’s perspective.
In Revelation 4:1, John records being invited to “come up” into heaven and to come into an open door to see something. In a visionary state, John peers into the heavenly throne room of God and sees the thunderous worship taking place around the throne. But from this vantage point, he is also enabled to see what is taking place on earth from heaven’s perspective.
We sometimes foolishly assume we have all the data we need to evaluate what is happening in our world. But we don’t. Our perspectives are limited by our humanity and our earthly vantage point. But as we take in what John recorded about what he saw, we find that we are better able to see the true nature of our present reality. This is perspective we need. Rather than seeing this world’s offerings as attractive, from heaven’s perspective we can see how ugly and unsatisfying they are. Rather than seeing the persecution of faithful believers as tragic defeat, we’re able to see it as glorious victory.
5. Revelation assures us that God will deal with the evil in this world.
Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13). He delivers us day by day, and Revelation shows us that one day he will deliver us in an ultimate and final way. His pouring out of wrath will be the answer to our prayers. You and I don’t want to live forever in a world tainted by evil, rebellion, idolatry, and immorality. And we won’t have to. The day is coming when God will cleanse away all the ugliness and evil from his creation, making it fit for us to live in as our forever home.
6. Revelation shows us what our eternal future will be like.
Sometimes the notion of “heaven” or “eternity” can seem so vague. We want details. And while the Bible might not give us all the details we’d like, the final chapters of Revelation uniquely provide us with beautiful images that give us a sense of our eternal future.
As we take in the book’s imagery of marriage, we can smile, sensing the intimacy we’re going to enjoy in face-to-face communion with God. As we read through its imagery of a city, we find ourselves anticipating the richness of being part of a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Its imagery of a temple causes us to imagine what it will be like to bask forever in the radiant glory of God. And as we take in the imagery of a garden, we exhale as we anticipate what it will be like to live in an atmosphere of healing, wholeness, and complete satisfaction for all eternity. Can you almost feel the joy of this marriage, this city, this temple, this garden?
7. Revelation promises blessedness.
When we think of beatitudes, most of us likely think of the “Blessed are . . .” statements from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–12). But did you know that Revelation has its own beatitudes? Within its pages are seven statements about the person who is blessed. As we survey Revelation’s seven beatitudes, it becomes immediately obvious that the blessedness God promises is nothing like the modern social-media version of #blessed.
Who will be blessed, according to Revelation? Those who hear and keep what is written in the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:3; 22:7). Those who refuse to compromise with the world (Revelation 19:9). Those who die in the Lord (Revelation 14:13). Those who stay awake, watching for the return of Christ (Revelation 16:15). Those who reign with Christ (Revelation 20:6). Those who have had their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb and have the right to eat from the tree of life (Revelation 22:14).
“Revelation sets before us true and lasting rather than false and fleeting blessedness.”
Revelation sets before us true and lasting rather than false and fleeting blessedness. This is the blessedness around which we want to orient our lives. This is the blessedness of eternal Sabbath rest that Adam failed to lead humanity into. We can be sure that Jesus, the last Adam, will not fail to lead us into it. Revelation shows us how he will do it. Anticipation of this blessedness is what fills us with genuine joy now.
My friend, don’t be intimidated by the book of Revelation. Don’t ignore it. Dive into it. Explore it. Have your perspective changed by it. Find joy in it. Experience the blessedness promised in it.