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Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
This will be the first message I think I've
ever preached that I've not practiced at all.
So my plan is to divide the preaching between
me and you.
I'm going to do sort of a sword drill.
We have a lot of verses to cover,
so I'm going to be looking for volunteers to
read some of them.
The Lord's laid on my heart lately that a
lot of my friends, and I know speaking for
myself, it's something I struggle with, and that is
discerning the Lord's will.
As Christians,
I think we kind of take it for granted
that we can pray and that the Lord will answer us.
And then when we do, and we're still not
sure, it gets frustrating and we feel like, well,
am I not right with the Lord?
It can even, for young Christians, cause them to
doubt his existence even when he never seems to
answer their prayers or things.
So that's something I want to cover is discerning
the will of God.
So my first point is be yielded to God's
will, whatever it may turn out to be.
Because God won't show you his will unless you're
willing to obey it.
To do it.
He doesn't waste his time that way.
Except in the case of Jonah.
And that's different.
We'll get into that.
So turn to Romans 12.
That's going to be our first verse.
Romans 12.
We'll read verses 1 through 2.
That's going to be a first verse.
Romans
sacrifice your body, or you could even say your
goals for life.
And again, that's something I struggled with in my
own life was shortly after I got saved,
I didn't really want to totally yield to God's
will because I was afraid it might not match
up with my own.
And obviously I had to come to the point
where I was willing to give that over to
the Lord and say, whatever you want, even if
it means calling me to be a missionary,
which I wasn't actually very excited about the prospect.
And he didn't,
obviously. I'm here.
But something another Christian told me was, you're afraid
that he's going to call you to do something
that you can't do.
Well, number one, when God does that, He'll do
it through you.
Number two, if you have certain gifts, talents, skills,
God doesn't waste the skills of His saints.
He gave you those for a reason.
He that made us knows how to work through us.
Turn over to Psalm 143.
Psalm 143, and we'll read verses 8 through 10.
I'm going to start a stopwatch here because I
tend to be long-winded.
Psalm 143,
For thou art my God.
Thy spirit is good.
Lead me into the land of our brightness.
So kind of like I've said you have to be yielded.
8 through 10.
David is saying here repeatedly throughout that passage,
lead me, direct me, show me your will.
He's displaying a willingness to obey.
And that brings me to another point, and that
is just because you're a Christian, kind of like
I opened with, does not mean that God will
communicate with you.
It's actually, believe it or not, not automatic.
He will answer your prayers.
He's promised to hear your prayers.
But communicating with you directly is a slightly different matter.
Turn to Ephesians 5.
Ephesians 5, we'll read verses 15 through 17.
I did warn you, it's going to be a sword drill.
All right.
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools,
but as wise,
redeeming at the time because the days are evil.
Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will
of the Lord is.
So I underline that, wherefore, be not unwise,
but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
He's telling them,
you know, take heed to yourselves ., of course,
Paul's talking to Christians here.
He's talking to the church.
He says, walk circumspectly, not as fools.
A Christian can walk as a fool.
He's still saved, but a Christian can be proud.
God resists the proud.
All right, still in Ephesians, turn to Ephesians 1,
verses 15 through 17.
Here, this is Paul's
you his will, but the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
So that would go, as I read it,
running in it from reading devotions and actually understanding
what you're reading, the Holy Spirit communicating with you,
to showing you God's will.
And Paul's praying that God would give these Christians that spirit.
So again, we see it's not automatic just because they're saved.
Can I get a volunteer to read Romans 8,
6-8?
David.
Romans 8, 6-8,
and Sam?
So, when you're walking in carnality, the scripture says
God's not going to speak to you.
So, if there are trials in your life,
as we see in the life of Job,
that's not a guarantee that you're out of the
will of God, but it is a good place
to start looking.
It's always my first reaction if you think, wow,
I'm having a rough time or nothing seems to
be going right.
I'm going to examine myself first and ask the
Lord to show me, is there sin in my life?
And a lot of times there is.
But sometimes there isn't, or at least not that
I'm aware of.
And that's entirely possible.
Like I said, God does test us to grow us.
So it's not a guarantee, but it should be
something you look for because that can sever fellowship
with the Lord.
All right, one more volunteer for 1 Samuel 3.
All right,
Ari. 1
for six, but that's fine.
My point there is, Samuel did not yet know
the voice of the Lord.
I personally think he was a Christian at that point.
He was dedicated to the Lord from his youth.
Doesn't make him a Christian, but we know he
was a Christian.
We just don't know this exact point, but we
see obedience to the Lord, obedience to Eli,
as soon as the Lord spoke to him,
of reverence, obedience to the Lord.
So I personally think at this point he was
already a follower of Christ, a Christian, but he
didn't know God's voice.
He just hadn't heard it before.
And that's something that in my life I've learned,
once you have a for instance where you can
look back and say, wow, the Lord warned me
about this or he prepared the situation and stuff,
make a note of that.
Or if you prayed about something and you get
an answer, you need to memorize those times because
it helps to learn how the Lord communicates to you.
It can help later on for differentiating between the
Lord communicating to you and praying hard about something
you really want and saying, okay, I think I'm
going to get it because I really want it.
Because I've been there.
So, next point is learn God's language.
God doesn't speak through lightning bolts or a thundering voice,
thankfully.
If he did, I think we'd all be entreating
that the word would not be spoken to us
anymore, and even the righteous among us would exceedingly
fear and quake.
So, turn to Psalm 119.
119, and we'll read verses
Through thy precepts I get understanding.
Therefore, I hate every false way.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and
a light unto my path.
So God speaks to us through his word,
104 through 105.
through circumstances,
and through other people.
So those are going to be three separate sub
points right there.
His word, circumstances, other people.
Obviously, his word is the most reliable source.
Any of those other circumstances or people, if it
doesn't line up with His Word, that's not God.
I had their past now, but an extended family
member that their spouse passed, and they got remarried.
Not a sin, but who they got remarried to
had been divorced.
And Matthew 5 says, Whoso marrieth her that is
divorced causeth her to commit adultery.
So that was wrong.
But they did like to tell people how the
Lord brought them together.
And I always thought, you might believe that.
But that's directly contradictory to Scripture.
So you can't,
you know, it doesn't matter what you feel like
or what you believe based on personal experience.
If it contradicts Scripture,
Scripture's right.
So, Romans 2, 17 through 18.
Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in
the law, and makest thy boast of God,
and knowest his will, and approvest the
could give more context on all these verses,
but for sake of time I'm trying to move quickly.
For a little context, he's rebuking a man in Romans 2.
And this man is clearly a Jew, knows the
law well, like Paul himself.
But in this rebuke, he says, you're called a Jew.
You know the law.
You know God's will.
You approve the things that are more excellent.
And he treats those two as almost synonymous.
You know the law, you know God's will.
And that is a huge part of God's will,
is to be conformed to the image of his son.
To know, as David says, teach me thy law.
You know, it's a lamp to my feet.
I don't want to get ahead of myself,
but I've struggled with that because I think there's
so many circumstances in life that the Bible doesn't address.
And, but most of those circumstances, the Bible does
address aspects of them.
Or a choice you come to, maybe one option
is directly addressed in Scripture.
So you can at least narrow down your options.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So that was God speaks through his word.
God speaks through circumstances.
Turn to Romans 1.
We'll read
verse 13. Romans 1.
Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren,
that oft times I purposed to come unto you,
but was let hitherto, that I might have some
fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
Now this one is a bit of an inference.
It's not spelled out in the passage, but that
parenthetical phrase there, but was let hitherto, I think
was the Lord redirecting him.
I purposed, I meant to come unto you,
but it didn't work out.
And he could have just said it didn't work.
But he said, but it was let or led hitherto.
And so that's circumstances.
He doesn't say God told me no or God
told me to go elsewhere.
Just circumstances didn't work out and he took that
as the Lord's leading.
Romans 2, next page over.
17 through 18.
Oh no, I'm sorry.
That's wrong.
We've already read that one.
1 Corinthians 16 and we'll read 8 through 9.
Can I get a volunteer for that one?
1 Corinthians 16.
Ben.
And then don't start yet.
Well, this is a longer passage.
Let me see.
I'll go ahead and read that passage.
So yeah, go ahead with 1 Corinthians 16 and
through circumstances in a positive way.
Most of my examples so far have been negative,
like don't do this, don't do that.
But here's a positive way.
There's a great door open.
And I've heard missionaries and preachers say, most missionaries
start out as very active in the church.
Before they're called to be missionaries, they're active in the church.
And if you want to know where, if you
want to be used for the Lord, to accomplish
the will of God, look around and find out
where God's working already and plug yourself in.
You know, you don't have to have a special ministry.
God does call some people to do their own special ministry.
Nothing wrong with that.
There's a lot right with that.
But if you're looking to be used, look where
God's already working and plug yourself in.
And that's what Paul's doing here.
He says, there's a great door.
There's
an opportunity.
And so here we are. All right. Then circumstances.
So he paid the fare thereof and went down
into it to go with them unto Tarshish from
the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord sent out a great wind into
the sea and there was a tempest in the
sea, and the ship was like to be broken.
So here we have another example of circumstances.
Jonah had no doubt.
He knew exactly what that was.
When people asked, who sinned?
Jonah said,
it's me.
And he told them the whole thing.
God didn't have to speak to him.
God sent circumstances circumstances and his will was pretty clear.
And that is something that I've noticed as well.
If you're praying for the Lord's will, at least
speaking from personal experience here, so somewhat empirical,
but if you're praying for the Lord's will,
God knows how to communicate to you even if
how he does doesn't seem as clear to other people.
If they could look at the circumstances, that's not
the conclusion I would have drawn.
He's communicating to you, and he knows how to
communicate to you, so you will recognize the circumstances
most of the time.
And then we have examples of Joseph being sold into slavery.
He later tells his family that you meant it
for evil, but God meant it for good.
Moses being adopted into Pharaoh's family,
David's journey to becoming king, and persecution scattering the
early church and growing the church.
It wasn't pleasant at the time, but again,
circumstances. If you had asked, is this persecution God's will?
Probably a good many of them would have said,
well, it's happening, so it must be God's will.
A different view of God, but we can see
in hindsight how God used that.
So the next point, God speaks through people.
And here I want to make a clarification.
Notice I did not say God speaks through brothers in Christ.
He does, and I would even say He prefers to.
But if you're not willing to hear God's voice
through anyone but a Christian, you're going to miss
it sometimes because God speaks through people, saved and unsaved alike.
Turn to 1 Chronicles 21.
Now, here too, I'll add that it is all
important that you know the Bible, because if you're
listening to someone who's unsaved, before you credit them
with speaking God's will, it better be in agreement
with the Bible.
1 Chronicles 21, we'll read verses 1 through 3.
So Joab was not a Christian.
He was a murderer.
Of course, so was David.
But Joab was a murderer.
It was a bit different.
We see when Solomon deals with him that he
turned on David towards the end of David's reign.
He was a man of war, but I wouldn't
say he was a Christian.
But here he gives biblical advice.
He says,
why will you be a cause of trespass in Israel?
God had forbidden them from things like that,
from numbering, from, of course, Solomon, from multiplying horses
and wives and a lot of things that the kings did.
But when someone stands up and says, don't do
this, you should stop and listen.
And if it is scriptural what they're saying,
it doesn't matter whether they're Christian or not.
God can speak through them.
Another example of this turned
to Numbers 23.
Numbers 23, we'll read verses 18 through 21.
And this is referring to Balaam.
And he took up his parable and said,
Rise up, Balak, here, hearken unto me,
thou son of Zippor.
God is not a man that he should lie,
neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said, and shall he not do it?
Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
So as we know the story there, Balaam is
hired to curse Israel and winds up blessing them,
was it four times?
I think four separate times, blesses them and directly
speaks the words that God puts in his mouth to speak.
At the very least, he was a carnal Christian.
Personally, I don't believe he was a Christian based
on how his life ended,
things were told about him towards the end of his life.
But again, at the very least, he was not
right with the Lord, but here he's directly speaking God's will.
So no, I'm not saying you should go to
the unsaved for advice.
But I think we tend to tune out too many avenues.
God is not going to speak to you in
an audible voice.
And so we have our ideas of how he
will speak to us and we tune everything else
out and we miss when God is
So that's my next point.
Compare the voice you hear to the Bible because
God's will will never contradict God's word.
Can somebody read Matthew 5, 17 through 18?
trying to speak to us.
All right, Sam again.
Matthew 5, 17 through 18.
And before you do the rest of us,
we can turn to Psalm 102 while you're reading it.
Go ahead, Sam,
as knowing God's commandments, God's word is paramount to
discerning his will.
Psalm 102,
we'll read verses 2 through 27.
That's a long passage.
Let me just double-double -double -
to put that there.
I think that was a
little bit later,
that God's character never changes.
His commandments never change.
That's not the same thing as saying His will cannot change.
Not quite.
And then I'll read this one.
It's a short passage.
Psalm 119,
89. Forever, O Lord, is thy word settled in heaven.
Pretty clear.
Forever means no end.
And maybe this will be the last one,
but can someone turn to 1 Peter 1.
Clay.
Peter 1, read verses 23 through 25.
1 Peter 1, 23 through
So that'll be the last verse on this point
25.
of knowing God's word.
But I'll say here that I appreciate what Pastor
does encouraging us to memorize scripture because even if
you memorize a verse or two and then two
weeks later you think you've forgotten it, it's in there somewhere.
You come across a situation in life, you may
not be able to quote it verbatim, but not
only will you know the gist of what it
says, you also have a good idea of where
to find it.
Especially with phones, you can just type in a
few keywords and you'll find it.
So having God's word in your heart is all important.
I'm glad you encouraged that.
That's the single most important thing.
But if you're like I am, I hope you're
not too much like me, but if you're at
all like I am, you're thinking,
well, great up to this point, but a lot
of this I already knew.
I knew that I'd go to the Bible,
first of all, but there are still situations like
what car should I buy?
Where should I go to college?
What career should I pursue?
Who should I marry?
Those aren't addressed in the Bible.
Not directly, not to me.
So how do I discern those?
And I'm not going to put myself up here
as an authority on that.
I struggle with that myself.
And that is really where a walk with the
Holy Spirit comes.
I won't say in handy, but it's required because
those are all personal things and they're going to
vary from person to person.
But like I mentioned earlier, usually there are aspects
of those choices that have direct correlation to verses
in the Bible.
Things that you can narrow down your list of
choices because, well, this one is inconsistent, or this
one doesn't seem best.
It doesn't seem consistent with God's character.
You can narrow down your choices, pray about it.
Another point that a lot of, I don't know
if it's directly said anywhere in the Bible,
but a lot of people that I really respect
have
know, God never rushes you.
If you're rushed, you're nervous about something, feel like
you have to make the decision right now, that's the devil.
You know, with God, when he communicates his will,
it's a settled confidence.
So give it some time.
You know, a lot of times God's answer,
we don't like this answer, but frequently his answer is wait.
And then the last thing I really want to
touch on, and I'm surprised that time flies,
is again, speaking personally, I think this is a
source of stumbling for some young Christians.
I know it has been in my life,
and that is the idea that there's only one right choice.
For instance, who should I marry?
You think, well, what if I marry the wrong person?
I marry someone, that wasn't God's will for me
to marry that person.
Well, obviously there are things, criteria that have to be met.
They should be a Christian, they should be right
with the Lord.
There are criteria that have to be met.
So you can marry someone that was not the Lord's will.
But in the U .S., 43%
of first marriages end in divorce.
And sadly,
that percentage is almost the same in so-called evangelical churches.
So just a quick brain exercise.
If even one person married the wrong person,
according to the will of God, well then whoever
that person was intended to marry now has no
choice but to marry the wrong person who messes
it up further and the chain is endless.
Obviously that can't be the case.
We would derail the will of God in short order.
So that's one of these, you may be sort
of familiar with this concept called Christian liberty.
We have choices, any of which are right.
Some way I've heard it described,
well,
okay, maybe a good example.
A few years ago, quite a few years ago,
I went out to Oklahoma to visit my brother in Enid.
We did some hiking.
We hiked Gloss Mountain, which is actually, what do
they call it?
I'm forgetting, a mesa.
That means it's flat on top.
So you're on the top of the mountain,
you've hiked to get there, and you come over
here, totally flat.
Over there, totally flat.
You're on the top of the mountain, you're no
higher here than you are here.
That's kind of like the will of God for the Christian.
His will is to be conformed to the image of God.
But you're going to have Christians that have slightly
different standards than you do.
But they're just as high as you are.
Personally, I may draw my music standard, for instance,
right here.
I don't like music by this author, or I
don't like that music.
But if I can't say that this music I
don't like is wrong biblically, and another Christian over
here likes that music,
then I have no right to say they're sinning.
I am responsible to the Holy Ghost who communicates
with me, who I should be listening to, through my conscience.
I am responsible to obey to him that knoweth
to good, doeth not, to him it is sin.
You're not supposed to sin against your conscience.
But my whole point in all this is that
there are options,
multiple options that can be the will of God.
I think we get sucked into a Calvinistic view
of God where he is the immovable mover.
He moves everything to conform to his will,
but he himself is unmovable.
We know that is not true.
We know it in our heads because God says,
pray. You have not because you ask not.
So he's not giving.
If you would ask, he would give.
That's an option.
He's willing to give, but he's not giving.
That was a lot of me, so let's hear
from the Bible on that.
Turn to Genesis 2.
Genesis 2, we'll start at the beginning, and verse 19.
And out of the ground the Lord formed every
beast of the field, every fowl of the air,
and brought them to Adam to see what he
would call them.
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was
the name thereof.
So again, a little bit of conjecture, but was
there a wrong name?
It says he brought the creatures to Adam to
see what he would name them it was totally
up to Adam there was no right answer there
was no wrong answer there's your choice you know
God was willing to leave that choice to Adam
Genesis 6 we'll read verses
There are two areas of this passage and others
5 through 7.
like it that I think people get tripped up on.
First, God repented.
And we just read, God is not a man
that he should lie, nor the son of man
that he should repent.
And then it says, I will destroy mankind or man.
Well, first,
in the earlier passage, nor the Son of Man
that he should repent,
that was, context is important,
going back on his word, going back on his promises.
And God will not do that.
If he has promised, he's going to keep his promise.
His character doesn't change.
His word doesn't change.
This was an action by God.
He never wrote, I will create man and he
will inhabit the earth for so long or whatever.
This was God's choice.
He made man and he regretted it.
Now, the regret,
the repenting is turning, but there's also some emotional,
there's a side to it that's an emotional regret.
And it said it grieved him at his heart.
And he did destroy mankind.
I think we get hung up on, you know,
Noah survived.
Yeah, but mankind didn't.
Noah and his family were eight people among thousands,
possibly millions.
He said, I will destroy mankind.
He destroyed mankind.
And so we see God changed his mind based
on human behavior.
Genesis 15,
and I know I'm going to have to stop soon here.
Genesis 15, 13 through 16.
Genesis 15,
verses 13 through 16.
That's the important part of this passage.
For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
So God's saying, there is a point.
We saw it with Sodom and Gomorrah.
There is a point at which Sodom and Gomorrah,
the pre-flood world, I will destroy people for sinning.
But they haven't reached that point yet.
So how this relates to God's will is Moses
leads the children of Israel out of Egypt.
He leads them clear up to the promised land,
sends out 12 spies
Clearly, it was God's time, God's chosen time to
destroy these people for their sin.
He hadn't under Abraham, gave them 400 years to repent.
They waxed worse and worse.
It was his chosen time to destroy them.
10 spies come back and say, we can't do this.
God punishes them with 40 years in the wilderness.
But I thought now was God's chosen time.
God led the children of Israel with the purpose
of destroying these people, and now he's given them
40more years.
It's consistent with God's character.
He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
We see Rahab got saved.
She was a harlot.
I doubt she was 40 years old.
That's someone who would not have gotten saved had
they been destroyed right then.
But she does.
It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.
But if we had this belief of God that
he's the movable mover,
that he sits there and everything will happen at
a certain time that he has decreed and there's
no flexibility, well then God would have had to
bring in another nation and obliterate the Amorites.
But he didn't.
So there is,
if I want to say, flexibility within God's will.
If there wasn't, prayer wouldn't be, there wouldn't be
much point to it.
And I'll go ahead and end with this.
I didn't want to end here, but I don't
want to go long either.
So Exodus 32.
We'll turn to Exodus 32.
I'm at 39.
And verses 9
through 14.
them out, to slay them in the mountains,
and to consume them from the face of the earth.
Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this
evil against thy people.
Remember, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants,
Verse 1.
whom thou swearest by thine own self, and said
unto them, I will multiply your seed as the
stars of heaven, and all this land that I
have spoken of will I give unto your seed,
and they shall inherit
make promises.
But I don't know if maybe Moses didn't realize
this, didn't think it through, but God would have
been keeping his promise to make of Moses a
great nation because Moses was in the line of
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
But we see again,
intercession. That's the value of prayer.
It changed the will of God.
And God's will changed here multiple times.
First, he was going to consume Israel.
He had brought them out of Egypt intending to
make of them a great nation.
But at this point, they had sinned so much,
they were so stiff-necked,
He was set on destroying them.
That was a change of mind.
But then Moses intercedes, and he changes his mind again.
God's not unpredictable.
At no point did He contradict His character or His promises.
But His will did change, and it can.
So I hope that helps because I can't stand
up here and tell you when you come into
situations that aren't spelled out in the scripture, here's the answer.
I can't give you that answer.
I'm not God.
Only God can give you that answer.
But once you've made that choice,
just because it looks like maybe another choice could
have worked out better, doesn't mean you made the wrong choice.
There can be multiple ways and we do ourselves
no favors by fretting about did I make the right choice?
Did I not?
We get paralysis by analysis.
So like I said, I hope that helps.
I'm going to have to end it here because
otherwise maybe Pastor will let me speak again sometime
because there are actually some interesting case studies in
the Bible of where people did and did not
stay consistent with the Lord's will and ways they
could have avoided things they got into.
But I'm going to have to end it there.