0:00 How can I know God's will? Suppose you're faced with a choice of a job and there are two jobs that loom before you. Two jobs that present themselves, two opportunities you have, and you're wondering, I'm confused. I don't know which one to take. What about something as significant as moving? You're perplexed. You've been wondering about should I sell my house or not? What about if you're contemplating marriage or your choice of school? >> Probably the question I get more often than any other question as a pastor, and that question is, how do I discern God's will for my life? There going to be times you're trying to discern and figure out what does God want? Where is
0:46 he leading? Um how is he directing my life? And if you're fatalistic, you might think that if you miss that bullseye, one wrong move and your life is doomed. It's like it's like, you know, I I got to follow the right path. If I if I steer off the perfect will of God, I'm going to get onto the highway of doom and my life is over. One wrong turn and my life's done. And that's just not the way that that God as our father uh deals with us. It's not like one wrong move and then God is like, "Well, you're on your own and uh good luck." But because of God's grace that as his children, he's going to still redirect us. He's going to be patient. He's got grace grace for us. Our failure to
1:33 always discern the perfect will of God clearly does not mean that God abandons us. You know, like let me illustrate this. This is just a completely random illustration. Let's just say you really believe there's this job opportunity in Cleveland and you're like, "All right, we're I'm praying through it." You pray through it. You decide, "We're moving to Cleveland." So, you move to Cleveland. And you're not there two weeks. And you realize, "I made a big mistake. This is not the job I thought. I am miserable. I don't I don't like the neighborhood. My family's miserable. Um, they're always barking at me now. Why did you move us here? I've made a big mistake. Now, don't think, oh no, now the rest of the trajectory of my life is completely off
2:18 course and doomed. Because listen, here's the deal. Even if that wasn't God's best intent for you, if you were a child of his and you and you honestly sought to seek his will, guess what? Even during that time that you are still in Cleveland before you move on to where you believe is the better part of his will, God's still going to grow you and God's still going to teach you some things and God's going to show himself strong during the time that you're there in Cleveland because look, he still is accomplishing his good and acceptable will even if it may not have been his perfect will. And who knows, fact of the matter is maybe it still is his perfect will. It just isn't comfortable for you because along the way of where God wants to take you, this was an intentional
3:04 stop he wanted you to make cuz there's somebody in Cleveland who needed to hear the gospel through you and God sent you on a short-term mission trip. So, see, we don't always know. We do the best we can to discern, to try to understand, to pray through things. We may not always get the bullseye exactly right, but listen, he's still a gracious father. And there's still plenty of room for him to help us, grow us, teach us, humble us, correct us, encourage us. So, we do the best we can. We trust God. We acknowledge him. He directs our paths. And that's part of just seeking and discerning his will. >> How do you know what God wants you to do? Now, if you're confused about the will of God, you're certainly not alone.
3:51 The scripture speaks about God's secret will. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. Now, how should we respond then to God's secret will? Well, we must trust God in what he has kept secret. So, if you've worried, for example, that you might have missed God's will because you made a bad decision in your life, well, this should come as an enormous relief to you. In the last day, God is not going to say to you, well, you went and lived in Alabama when you should have gone to Michigan. See, God has not revealed whether you should live in Alabama or Michigan or Illinois or anywhere else. But he will hold us accountable for how we live in Alabama
4:36 and Michigan and Illinois or wherever else you may be. So when you find yourself saying, "I just need to find God's will," remind yourself that God's will is that you should live as he has described in the Bible. And for the rest, well, make the wisest and most informed decisions that you can. When you have to make a decision and there's no verse in the Bible that gives you a clear direction. Your calling is to discern. We must seek the path of wisdom. When we pray about something, we don't check our brains at the door. We pray. We seek God. We follow certain principles. And then we believe God's
5:24 leading our mind to make the best possible decision. God's given you a brain. You you you can make the decision. Weigh out the decision. Look at every option. Write down all the pros for the decision and the cons against the decision. But then there comes a point where you weigh everything out in your mind and you make the best possible decision you can knowing and believing that's God's will. We find this in Psalm 90:12. There comes a point where you have to make a decision. There comes a point where you no longer stay in indecision. Psalm 90:12. So teach us to number our days that we
6:09 may apply our hearts to wisdom. Teach us to number days so we can apply our hearts. In other words, it comes a point where you apply the wisdom that God has given you. It comes a point where you say, "God, it's time to decide." and you begin going down a certain path. Now, there are some paths that you really have to be sure before you go down. Marriage is one. You want to be absolutely positive. If you're a young person and you're thinking about marriage, this direction you have to go. But other than marriage, there are very few things that you're locked into for the rest of your life. And so if you believe God is guiding you in a certain job and you move in that direction, then three years later you recognize that this is not the job for you, you could
6:56 always back up from that. You could always say, "God, you put me there for a purpose, but maybe maybe you have something else for me." So you you don't have to wait to make a decision on most things until every single thing is clear. What you have to do to make a decision for God is to have the conviction that this is God's will. There may be certain unknowns out there. But if you know something is God's will because you've been praying about it, you've been getting counsel about it, you've seen enough providences in it, then you move ahead by the name and the glory of Christ. God longs to guide you. God wants to guide you. God will guide
7:42 you as you open your heart to him.
