What is God's will, and how can I know it?

Last week we began a new series on “Knowing and Doing the will of God, and we saw that, first of all, what God wants for all of us is that we:

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.[1]

That is the primary, the utmost will of God for every human being.

In the Lord's prayer Jesus taught us to pray, "your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven",[2] meaning, of course, that as we pray, our desire is that the purposes of God would be accomplished not only in our own lives, but also in our church, our communities, our nation, and in the world; that ultimate purpose that we love God totally.

To honestly pray "your will be done" is to surrender ourselves, our ambitions, our goals, and our direction fully and completely to God, and then to go in the direction that God shows us. "His will", as opposed to 'my will' "be done".

Just as Jesus prayed in the garden "not my will but yours be done",[3] even though the will of God for him was arrest, trial, flogging, crucifixion, and death bearing the sins of the world, so also when we pray "your will be done", we are surrendering our lives, our futures, our fortunes to God for whatever, however, and wherever God chooses to use us. That is part of what it means to “love God with our entire being”. "Your will be done".

In our reading this morning from Mark 3 Jesus made it clear that the true family of God, the true people of God, is made up of those who "do the will of my Father". The people of God is made up of those who not only know what God wants, but it is made up of those who respond in obedience and faith and do what God wants, as Jesus said in Luke 6:46:

Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?

Or, to paraphrase:

Why do you say all of the right words, but your actions do not match your profession?

Knowing and doing the will of God is vitally important. But that raises a question:

If the will of God is so important, then what is God's will, and how can I know it?

 If the will of God is so important, then what are those things that God wants for us? What are those things that God desires from us, and how in the world can I know what God wants, so that I might respond to God in obedience and faith and do what God wants?

We have already seen that what God wants from us is that we:

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.[4]

That is God's purpose for humanity. And being God's purpose for humanity, that is God's will for each and every one of us. So we never have to ask ourselves:

Does God want me to love him with my entire being? Does God want to have the first place, the most important place in my life?

We never have to ask ourselves that question. Why? Because God has already told us that that is, in fact, his will, his purpose for each of us.

The Bible, God's revelation of himself, his activity, and his desire for humanity; the Bible is also clear about other things that are God's will for our lives. Other things that he wants for each and every person here, in fact, what he wants for each and every person everywhere.

First, and foremost, God wants people to be saved. God wants people to turn from sin, put their faith in Jesus who died for your sin, and find forgiveness, new life, and salvation. Jesus said in Matthew 18:14:

It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

In other words, God doesn't want anybody to be lost. God doesn't want to sit in judgment upon anybody. God doesn't want anybody to be eternally separated from him. Instead, what God wants is for everyone to be saved, as Peter said in 2 Peter 3:9:

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:4 that:

[God] desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

What all of this tells us is that what God desires for you, what God wants for you - God's will for your life, is that you turn to Jesus, know the truth, repent, believe, and be saved.

Furthermore, Jesus said in John 6:40:

This is indeed the will of my Father -

Did you notice that? What Jesus is about to say is the will of God. It is what God wants for you.

This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.

It is God's will, it is God's purpose and desire for you that if you turn to Jesus, trust in Jesus, you will receive from God the gift of eternal life, and after our physical death, we will partake in the resurrection of the dead. This is the "will of God"!

Then, beyond that most important event of faith in Jesus Christ, what we also come to realise is that every command, every instruction that we find in the New Testament, these are also what God wants for us. These are also "the will of God".

Therefore, when the New Testament writers repeat the Old Testament commands, "do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal", they are not simply giving us instructions, or ordering us about. Instead, they are revealing the will of God, the purposes of God for us.

So if we are walking in the parking lot at our local shopping centre and we see a Mercedes "S" class sitting there with the windows down, the doors unlocked and the key in the ignition, we never have to pray:

Lord, what a great opportunity this is to own a car that I could never afford to purchase. Lord, is it your will that I hop in, start her up, and take this car home?

We don't have to pray that, we never have to ask that question because God has already revealed that it is wrong to steal, and because God has already revealed that it is wrong to steal we already know God's will in this matter.

In fact, we would be far better off standing there, waiting until the owner returned, and ensuring that his property is safe from those who would steal, for in this way we would be loving our neighbour as ourselves, which is also the will of God for us because it is the command of Jesus to us.

When we turn over to Ephesians 5 we read:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.[5]

We also read:

Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.[6]

What this does is to reveal the will of God to us in our relationships with our spouses.

As husbands we are to love our wives in the exact same manner as Christ loved the church. Nurturing, protecting, enabling, encouraging, helping in every situation for the good, the welfare, and the growth of our wives. In the same way, the submission of wives to husbands is not that of a slave. It is instead the same as the submission of the church to Christ. One of trust in the absolute love of another. Why are husbands and wives to relate to one another in this way? Because that is the will of God. That is what God wants for us.

As we go on into Ephesians 6, we read that the will of God is that children should obey their parents and parents should raise their children in the teaching of Christ.[7] That is the will of God.

Reading further, we find that the will of God is that employees must work hard for their employers and employers must always do what is right by their employees.[8] Of course in Ephesians Paul was talking specifically about slaves and slave-owners, but we can still apply the principles to our modern workplaces, and applying these principles to our modern workplaces we know that this is the will of God because God has revealed all of these things to us.

Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 that:

This is the will of God, your holiness.

Holiness, and in the following verses Paul goes on to describe one particular area of holiness,[9] but holiness is always God's will because God has revealed it to us. Therefore, anything that is "unholy", or promotes "unholiness" in our lives and relationships is contrary to the will of God. How can I say this? Because it is God's will that we be "holy".

Paul also said in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

All of these things are the will of God. And so if we are always grumbling, complaining, griping, and whinging – then we are not living according to the will of God. And if we are always grumbling, complaining, griping, and whinging, it is probably also because we are not praying. And if we are not praying, if we are not surrendering these concerns to God in prayer, then we are not living according to the will of God.

What we see is that the Bible is filled with many things that show us what the will of God is. The Bible reveals many things that God wants for us, and the Bible reveals many things that God wants from us.

However, normally when we talk about knowing the will of God we aren't talking about this type of thing, although we need to. Instead, normally when we are talking about the will of God we are talking about those things which are specific to us.

• What career should I choose?

• What should I study at university, and should I even go to university in the first place?

• Should I marry this person and take them as my spouse, or, perhaps, not get married at all?

• Should I purchase this car, or any car?

• Should I purchase this house?

• Should I change jobs?

• What direction in life should I take?

When we think about the will of God we may also think about such things as: should I become a pastor, a missionary, or a Sunday School teacher? How can I serve in the church? What task can I, should I, take on?

When we talk about knowing the will of God, or when we talk about "God's will for my life", these are most often the types of things that occupy our thoughts and our attention.

Not simply the "general things" which apply to everyone: "Husbands love your wives", but the specific things that apply to us as individuals. Where to go. What to do. In what capacity to serve God. Unfortunately, these are the things that the Bible does not talk about. The Bible doesn't give us those types of specifics, so how can I know what the "will of God" for me is?

In Psalm 40, the Psalm writer points us in the right direction on how we can know the will of God. Psalm 40:7-8 says:

Then I said, "Here I am, I have come-- it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, my God."

In that statement we see the first, the most important, step in knowing and doing the will of God. Notice what he said, "I desire to do your will, my God". This word translated as "desire"[10] speaks about:

• What someone wants to do.

• What they take pleasure in doing.

• What their hearts and minds are inclined towards.

In other words, when the Psalm writer talks about how his desire is to do the will of God, this isn't some optional extra that he might maybe do one day if or when it suits him. Instead, doing the will of God is the focus of his life. The longing of his life was to know and to do the will of God.

This desire for doing the will of God and the will of God alone, was the attitude of the Lord Jesus. We read in John 4:34 where Jesus told his disciples:

My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

The disciples had just returned with physical food from a village in Samaria, but Jesus didn't care about that because he had just had the opportunity to speak to a Samaritan woman. Jesus was able to make known to her that he was the Messiah, and Jesus had the joy of seeing her rush back into town with this Good News that the Messiah had come.

Perhaps he knew that even then this Samaritan woman was persuading the people of her village to come out and see this Jewish Rabbi, and Jesus perhaps knew that many would come out, speak with him, turn from their sins and turn to him in faith.

Jesus knew that the will of God that people repent of their sins and come to the knowledge of the truth was about to be fulfilled in this village, and that was all that Jesus cared about.

"My food", he said, "that thing which is absolutely essential to my life, is knowing what God wants me to do. My food is then doing the work that God sent me to do."

I delight to do your will.

We read again in John 6:38 where Jesus said:

I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

Here we see the contrast between the two wills. "My will" and "God's will". What I want and what God wants. Jesus made it clear that his entire reason for being in this world was to do the will of God.

I delight to do your will.

Why are we here? What is our "food"? Whose will are we seeking to accomplish? That is the key to knowing the will of God.

Jesus said in John 7:17:

Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.

Jesus made it very clear that the only way to know the truth about Jesus, is to resolve to do the will of God. To choose to do the will of God.

Whose will have we chosen? Our own, or God's?"

George Müller, the nineteenth century evangelist and reformer said this about knowing the will of God:

I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.

In other words, I seek to be in a place where all I want is to know and to do God's will, and when all I want is to know and do God's will, God makes it plain to me.

So often we might pray, "Lord, show me your will". But our hearts and minds are so cluttered with what we want, that we don't, or we can't, listen to him!

I delight to do your will.

Jesus prayed in the garden, "not my will, but yours be done".

Think about Jesus and how many things could have forced their way into his mind that night: The pain, beatings, mocking, torture, suffering, separation, and death that he faced. The only way that Jesus could face the future, was to put aside all of this, and to delight to do God's will.

Your will be done.

Paul said essentially the same thing in Romans 12:1-2:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Notice what Paul said. As you view God's mercy, as you think about the "height and depth, and breadth of the love of Christ".[11] As you think about all that God has done for you in Christ Jesus, that is, as you think about all of the things that Paul has talked about in Romans 1-11. As you allow the wonder of God to overwhelm you:

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Give yourself fully to God.

Take up your cross and follow Jesus.[12]

Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.[13]

Love God with your whole being, which is both holy and pleasing to God and is the only response to God that makes any sense, it is our "reasonable" worship.

As we do this, we also ensure that we are not being conformed to the world, but we are instead being transformed into the image of Christ. We are becoming more like Jesus with the result that, as this become a reality in our lives, we will then know the will of God.

But which comes first? Do we know the will of God first of all?

No. First of all we surrender our lives to God. We become that "living sacrifice".

• We fully surrender ourselves to him.

• We take up our cross, and we follow him.

• We allow the Spirit of God within us to work in us to transform us into the image of Christ.

• Our food becomes to do the will of him who called us.

• We realise that we have come to do his will.

• We can honestly say with Jesus, "not my will but yours be done".

• We resolve, we choose, we will to do his will.

Then – and only then – can we know with certainty what God wants for us in these specifics of life. If we do not give ourselves fully to him, we will never know the will of God, the direction of God for us as individuals, as families, or as a church.

Do you know the will of God, the leading of God for your life?

Do you want to know the will of God, the leading of God for your life?

Then give yourself fully to God, surrender yourself fully to him, say with Jesus, "not my will but yours be done", and God will show you the way he has for you as an individual and for us as a church.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Not my will, but yours be done.

My food is to do the will of my Father in heaven.

I have come to do your will.

Amen.

[1] Mark 12:30

[2] Matthew 6:10

[3] Matthew 26:42; Luke 22:42

[4] Mark 12:30; c/f Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27

[5] Ephesians 5:25, 28; Colossians 3:19

[6] Ephesians 5:22; c/f Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1

[7] Ephesians 6:1-4

[8] Ephesians 6:5-9

[9] 1 Thessalonians 4:4-7, which focusses on sexual purity.

[10] חָפֵץ

[11] Ephesians 3:18

[12] Matthew 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27

[13] Romans 6:11