Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 13, 2021 | Good Question - What is the Will of God for My Life?

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June 13, 2021 | Good Question - What is the Will of God for My Life? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Man, good morning, good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to dance, but I don't I don't know.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do we believe in dancing here?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's a thing.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly didn't in the Baptist church I came from, so you never know.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, does the Lord have a will for my life?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, can I know what it is?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever asked those questions before, you're in good company because they're some of the most asked questions regarding Christian living.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, we started a new uh series entitled Good Question.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And today, if it's not obvious already, I want to talk about the will of the Lord for our lives.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Does he have one?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And can we know what it is?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: My answer to that question is a resounding yes.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so let me pray and you can all be dismissed.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding, you're not getting off that easy.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit more complex than that.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not much more, but a little bit.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um entered into a process of discerning the Lord's will, chances are uh you've found it confusing or vague or frustrating or potentially even unsettling.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it wouldn't be one of the most asked questions of Christian living.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can certainly relate.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I hope to take a few minutes here to share with you uh the story of my experience with trying to discover the Lord's will uh for my wife and I.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Lindsay and I started dating back in 2011, and back then I was an insurance salesman in Des Moines, Iowa, uh, except for I wasn't a very good one.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um it turns out that if you want to be successful in the insurance industry, you actually have to work kind of hard.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you should have some trust with people and uh own some insurance yourself.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I was a 20-year-old half-hearted salesman and I didn't own any insurance, and it was very difficult to make uh the sale.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I put in minimal effort.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would sell a policy, make some money, live off of that for a while, and then when I'd get you know broke, I'd go sell another policy if I could, and so on and so forth.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But to make a long story short, uh I was failing in the insurance industry, and it was entirely my fault.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we neared our wedding, uh Lindsay and I, we realized quickly that me failing in the insurance industry wasn't going to support our family.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we put our heads together and we jumped ship on that, and we, you know, we're we're trying to figure out what is it that we're going to do, so I decided the only thing I could think of that I wanted to do was ministry.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's very comforting coming from the guy preaching to you this morning, but don't worry, uh, it gets worse.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what we told ourselves to make ourselves feel better about failing in the insurance industry?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We said, well, it must not have been God's will, or else I would have succeeded and made six figures.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: He must want us in ministry.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yikes.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, fast forward a few years, uh, we found ourselves in Bible college after a failed ministry attempt.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Surprise, surprise.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we felt we had no idea what we were doing and we needed training.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we moved to Virginia, and I started school to train to be a worship pastor.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: But after my first semester in class, I was taking an introduction to Old Testament, an Old Testament survey course, and for the first time in my Christian life, the Bible came alive to me.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: My professor was a professor of Jewish studies and is an archaeologist in Israel, and he's done a lot of excavation at Qumran, the place where they discovered the original Dead Sea Scroll caves.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he brought a dusty old clay brick to class one day, and he set it up on his lectern, and he just left it there the whole class, and I'm sitting in the front row, like, what's going on with this brick?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the class, he came and he said, This brick is from the walls of Jericho.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, that's interesting.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I stood up at the end of class and I went and I picked up that brick and I, you know, rubbed the dust between my fingers.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, it it just all became so real to me.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I believed the Bible before, but but it occurred to me in that moment that this thing is real, uh, and it it all happened in real places.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just stories.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I you can touch it and feel it.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, I had to see it, I had to go there, I had to touch it for myself.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, being the all-in person that I am, I ran home and I said to Lindsay, babe, I'm switching degrees.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going into Jewish studies, I'm gonna become a professor and an archaeologist, I'm gonna be the next Indiana Jones.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and oh, one more thing.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this means we're going to have to move to Israel for two years to complete a master's degree.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now you can only imagine the shock and horror on my poor cautious, non-adventurous wife, uh wife's face in that moment.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And even though she's a very gentle and supportive person, uh, this is where she drew the line.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: She said, uh, no, I'm not feeling that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And until I hear the Lord explicitly say to me, go to Israel, I ain't going.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was uh okay.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now I wish I could tell you uh that I humbled myself in that moment and listened to my very wise wife.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I wouldn't be telling you the truth.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I dug in my heels, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I switched my degree, pressed on, believing that this is what the Lord's telling me to do.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can really feel it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's will for our lives.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm the I'm the husband, I I can lead our family, right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and as such, he will bring her along.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: He'll he will bring her around to my point of view, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's funny.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but a year later, no dice, uh, two years later, and a trip to Israel, which I really thought would do it, still no luck.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Three years later, and it's still not going to happen.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I was just as convinced as ever that this is the Lord's will for my life and for Lindsay's life.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And she was still waiting to hear from the Lord.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But until one day Lindsay accompanied me to a seminary class at DTS, uh, and the question of the class was, what is God's will for my life?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: The same talk that I that I hope to give today, uh, and that changed everything for the both of us.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and my hope this morning is that it will help some of you as well.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so the reason I tell you this story is to illustrate the wrong way to go about the will of the Lord.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, what I'm saying is I've been there, I've done that, and I was wrong.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want you to be feel personally attacked when I go and rip apart my own story here in a few minutes, uh, because uh today I don't want you to feel as though I'm preaching at you because I'm with you.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm my own target audience today, and my hope uh is that some some of you guys can relate with my experience.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'd like to just share some wisdom that I've gained over the years of trying to trial and error, figure out this will of the Lord thing.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the first point I want to make is this Beware of misusing the Lord's will.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Beware of misusing the Lord's will.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about three ways God's will is commonly misused as illustrated by my own story.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first way that we commonly misuse the Lord's will is to justify our failures.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: We commonly misuse the Lord's will to justify our failures.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I did in the insurance industry.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the reality is I wasn't putting in the effort, it was entirely my fault, but yet I wanted to feel better about it because I didn't want to be the idiot that failed out of the insurance industry.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, well, the Lord wants, you know, it wasn't his desire for me to go into insurance, you know, he wants me to go into ministry.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I believe that the Lord is sovereign, don't get me wrong, and if he wants you somewhere, by golly, he'll get you there.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some way, somehow.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what often happens is that we fail due to our own lack of effort, our own lack of good attitude, our own lack of discipline, and then instead of taking responsibility, it's much, much easier to appeal to the sovereignty of God.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine if we applied this to other areas of our failure.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: What if we said, well, I failed morally today?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I guess the Lord didn't want me to be moral today, otherwise I would have stayed faithful.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's ridiculous.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't say that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or what if we said, uh, well, we lost the football game today?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh by football, I mean soccer, just so you guys know.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, guess it wasn't the Lord's will for us to win that with that soccer game.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if that were the case, if this is how it worked, why would you train?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you work your butt off uh to better your team if in the end it's just an act of God whether you win or lose?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jürgen Klopp, German manager or coach of Liverpool, which is a team in England, uh, lately has been great rivals to my team, Manchester City.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Manchester City this season was beating them in everything.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Jürgen Klopp in Liverpool had a had a game where there was a lot of wind.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they couldn't seem to kick the ball against the wind very well, although the other team did just fine.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and after the game, he he's kind of known for being a bit of a sore loser, and and he is quoted saying, Well, God is just a Manchester City fan, and you can't win against God.
• 10:20
  unknown: Right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if that's the case, Jurgen, then why do you get up in the morning?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you continue to try hard if it's just an act of God?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we so easily appeal to God's sovereignty, and in the process we don't realize that we are implicitly blaming God for our own failures.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is it makes us feel better.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of gives us an out, doesn't it?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we often misuse God's will to justify our failures, but we also misuse God's will to justify our desires.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: If we're honest with ourselves, this is probably the most common application or misapplication.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I later discovered this is exactly what I was doing in trying to get Lindsay and I to move to Israel.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk more a little bit later about why that wasn't the Lord's will for my life.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe you say things like this you know, I really feel that the Lord is calling us to buy this very expensive house that we can't afford, you know, so that I can entertain the church.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or we really feel like God wants us to buy a Tesla, you know, so we can preserve the environment, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh I just really feel like God wants me to take some me time to get right with him, so I've booked a two-week all-inclusive vacation to Cancun.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds nice.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, these are exaggerated examples, but but we do this all the time with things.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's interesting is that we seem to only do this with stuff that we feel the need to justify.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff we apparently feel bad about for some reason.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if this is how the Lord's will works, why don't we apply it across the board for the small things?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't hear a lot of people saying, you know, I really prayed about it, you know, and I felt like God wanted me to buy the blue shirt instead of the green shirt, you know, because blue is the color of relationships and God wants people to like me.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I really feel like this is God's will for my life.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or we don't say things like this, uh, I just really felt like the Lord wanted me to get a triple shot of espresso this morning, you know, so that I'm really alert in traffic and I don't run anybody over.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it with the small purchases in life we don't usually ask the Lord's will?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh could it be because we are trying to self-justify the larger things?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just some thoughts, just some questions.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the third way that we commonly misuse God's will is to justify our own lack of action.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in our story, this is what Lindsay did.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just Lindsay, many of us do this.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've been guilty of this in multiple areas.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just really fits into the story nicely to use Lindsay as an example in this case.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but many of us can become so focused on only doing what God wills that we become completely paralyzed until we are a thousand percent sure that it's God's will for our lives, lest we do something that is our own desire and not his.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: It leads many to a high anxiety that causes us to sit and hold in an indefinite holding pattern.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that God doesn't speak to us audibly.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can get caught not moving forward, not carrying out our ministries out of fear, and we justify it by saying that we don't know the will of the Lord.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: He just hasn't told me yet.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: If this is how it's supposed to be, we're not gonna get anywhere in our ministries.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so in my story, I did all of these things.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically in my trying to move us to Israel, I was sure that the Lord was telling us to go to Israel.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Lindsay was sure that he was telling us not to go to Israel in his not telling us to go to Israel.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, who was right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We were both claiming to have heard from God or not heard from God.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We were both appealing to this idea of hearing from the Lord.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so who was right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Was it her or was it me?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly we both weren't right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly the Holy Spirit wasn't telling us two contradictory things.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we both base this idea on hearing from the Lord.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the second thing I want to talk about is this.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Beware of Christian mysticism.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Beware of Christian mysticism.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, stick with me here.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that some of this might sound a little harsh uh at first, but I believe we have to tear some stuff down in order that we can build back up.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal today is not that you leave here feeling beat down.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is that you leave here feeling encouraged and with a newfound or reaffirmed confidence in your walk with the Lord.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: So hang with me.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep tearing apart my own story and just follow along.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, mysticism versus the word.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk about God's will, some of us have this habit of saying things like, you know, God told me this.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or I really feel God is telling me to do this.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: How this, however, is not the proper way that Christians ought to go about the revelation of God.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: This idea, when not paired with Scripture, is synonymous with Christian mysticism.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a website that you may have heard of.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's called gotquestions.org.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Christian website, and it might be a good resource for you as we go through this question and answer series, but they just answer all kinds of different questions regarding Christianity and God, the Bible, and they say this Christian mysticism tends to elevate experiential knowledge and revel in the mysterious, focusing on mysticism for spiritual growth.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical Christianity, on the other hand, focuses on knowing God through his word, the Bible.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mysticism tends to be an individual, subjective practice, and a focus on mysticism can certainly lead one into error.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question mysticism tends to focus on is what are you, what are you feeling?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I would respond to that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what are you feeling?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, the feelings that we appeal to are very subjective, are they not?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a tingling sensation?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some say it's a you know it's like a burning in your gut.
• 16:58
  unknown: Right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm over here saying, how do you know that wasn't just last night's pizza?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have reflux.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should go see somebody about that.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what is striking though is the wild inconsistency of how this feeling is applied.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some feel it, others don't.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Some say it's a burning, some say it's a desire, some say it's a whisper, some say it's a tingle, some say that they hear the Lord audibly, and some say that a butterfly landed on their nose as they were praying, and that was a sign that God was telling them yes.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can it be validated?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can those things be validated?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you know that you know?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can you know that those are the Lord speaking to you?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and what about the guy who doesn't feel it or hear it?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: What about the guy who doesn't have acid reflux?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is he less of a Christian?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is that guy or gal less spiritual than you because they don't feel it too?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so what I want to do is go to some biblical texts.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna go to Deuteronomy 13.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and in Deuteronomy 13, this is Moses speaking, and he says this if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go after other gods, whom you have not known, and let us serve them.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you, to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: You shall, in contrast, follow the Lord your God and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, and you shall listen to his voice and serve him and cling only to him.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that Moses is portraying here is that the test of a prophet is not what he does, or not the revelation that he claims to have received, it is what he says.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if the prophet comes and he he makes a prophecy, and even if that prophecy comes true, he says, God gave me a dream, and even if that dream comes true and he says something contradictory to the words of Moses, to the Bible, the next verse says, You're to stone him to death.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: You aren't to stone him to death, Israel was to stone him to death.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be clear about that, just in case.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the the point is uh that dreams and feelings are subjective.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even if they do a miracle and they contradict the word of God, they're false teachers.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the emphasis is on clinging to God's word and interpreting everything based on his word, not based on subjective feeling or individual revelation.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, can God communicate in dreams?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, he can.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: But is it ever in addition to what can be validated by the biblical text?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't believe it is.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: To go to the New Testament and see how this sort of plays out, uh, Jude talking about some false teachers in the church says this.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness, interesting word, and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say in verse 8, yet in the same way these men, these same men he was talking about in verse 4, also by dreaming defile the flesh and reject authority and revile against angelic majesties.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Christians are receiving dreams and false teachers are receiving dreams.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know which one is true?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be a need for validation, because even false teachers rely on dreams and feelings.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: But he goes on to say this: but these men revile the things which they do not understand.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the things which they know by instinct, that is the things that they feel like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed, by their dreams and their feelings that they're relying on.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feast when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what is to keep you from being blown around by wind or tossed around by the every wave that comes along?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: If this is how it works, if we rely on feelings and individual mystic relationships, what's to keep you from getting it wrong too?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we pursue it in this way, then every new feeling or every new circumstance changes the way or changes what you think God wants you to do.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's subjective and it's not the way of God's people, it only destroys.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I like the old phrase which says, if you want to hear God speak, read your Bible out loud.
• 22:51
  unknown: Right?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you told me that you felt like God was telling you to go share the gospel with somebody, I'd believe you because I can validate that in his scripture that this is indeed the Lord's will for you to do this.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't validate, however, whether or not he wants you to buy that house or take that job.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the main point I want to make here is we are people of God's word.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: We must validate everything based on what has already been revealed.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can't validate, then we simply can't know.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is part of loving the Lord with all of your heart and your soul, as we saw in Deuteronomy.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: But living by faith, we are to live by faith in the sufficiency of his word.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the opposite of that is living based on human wisdom in response to our circumstances, and then trying to justify it saying that this is what God wants for our lives.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the Christian relies on this model that God speaks to me through the revelation of his word.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is, he's given prophets and he's given apostles that he has spoken to directly, who were in charge of writing down and passing on the revealed will of the Lord in the written text.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: But today we have this sort of other thing where we say, no, God talks to me directly.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: If this were the case, then why not?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why go through all the trouble of building up prophets and apostles?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And why did these prophets and apostles have to die to protect God's revelation?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: If in fact he just speaks to you.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: If he just speaks to you, then he could have just told you, and in essence, the word of God would be void.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: But this is not what Christianity believes.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: We believe that God has revealed his will through his written word.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are people who know the will of God through the revealed will of God.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as Christians, we have the sufficient spoken will of the Lord completely contained in the written word of the Lord.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my first two points were this: beware of misusing the Lord's will.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: My second point was beware of Christian mysticism.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Been there, done that.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so my third point is this: be content with God's will as revealed in his word.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Be content with the will as revealed in his word.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says this in Romans 12, 1 through 2.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, according to this, apparently it is possible to know the will of the Lord.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we it says we come upon it by the renewing of our minds, but the question is, how do we renew our minds?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And my short answer for this is through the reading of his word.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is most of us stop right here in verse 2.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we think to ourselves, well, see, if I just worship a little bit harder, then the Lord will surely reveal his will to me.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been down this path.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've said to myself that the Lord wasn't revealing his will to me because I wasn't praying hard enough, because I wasn't worshiping hard enough, because I wasn't having enough quiet time, so on and so forth.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we can easily think that way if we stop right here in verse 2.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if we keep reading, we find that for three chapters, Paul writes very explicitly what he believes the will of the Lord to be.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And notice too that he doesn't say, transform your minds, so that you may have the Lord's will revealed to you separately.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, what he says is transform your minds so that you may approve what the already revealed will of the Lord is.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is, you transform your mind so that you are in agreement with his will as has already been revealed, not that he will give you new revelation.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the question then is, what is his already revealed will?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like I said, for three more chapters, uh Paul goes on and he talks about what he believes to be the will of the Lord.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, we have the whole of scriptures, uh, and so you'd be good to be a student of the scriptures to discover the Lord's will.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul's sort of summarizing the idea of what he believes these are to be.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's all these imperatives in Romans 12 through 15, and I figure uh we could just summarize a few of them and just get a picture of what Paul believes is the Lord's will for your life.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: In 12, 3, he essentially says it's the Lord's will for you to be humble, to not think more highly of yourself than you ought to.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: In 12, 4 through 8, he says, serve the church with what you have.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is, he's given each of you a gift or some kind of desire or some kind of special thing that you are supposed to use to serve his body, to serve his church.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say that it's his will that you love one another well in the church, that you give yourself up for one another.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say that he wants you to persevere in suffering.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to continue to believe in him even in the face of persecution.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say that it is his will that you just be good to one another.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just be kind, be tenderhearted to one another.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter 13, he goes on to say it's his will that you be subject to governing authorities.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say that it's his will that you love your neighbor well.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the end of chapter 13, he says it's his will that you live in light of your future hope.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: You live in light of the coming kingdom, as if you were already there, and so on and so forth.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: If we kept going through 14 and 15, you would start to get these pictures of what Paul believes is the Lord's will for your life.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if I were to summarize it in one statement, which is hard to do, but it's essentially this serve God through serving his body.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Serve God through serving others.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's his will for your life, to take what he has given you and to use it to serve.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in this way you will worship him.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: You will do what is good in his eyes.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that some of us, including myself, are trying to seek God's will for us in non-revelation areas of our lives while we are clearly living defiantly to God's revealed will.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: We pray for a house when we aren't serving in our church.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: We pray for a job when we aren't loving our families well.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: We pray to go into the international missions field when we aren't sharing the gospel right here.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: In my story, it clearly wasn't the Lord's will for us to go to Israel, because in doing so, my wife would have been miserable.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she would have gone supportively, she's a very supportive person, but she would have been miserable.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it would not have been a good thing for our marriage.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: It might possibly have destroyed our marriage.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I know for a fact, in God's revealed will, that it is his will that I love my wife and give myself up for her like Christ did the church, because it says so in the book of Ephesians.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that I was wrong.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was most definitely not the Lord's will for my life, because in doing that thing that I felt was the Lord's will for my life, I would have been neglecting the revealed will of the Lord for my life.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what if, for example, Lindsay would have been happy there?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: What if going to Israel wouldn't have destroyed my family?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: What if uh would it then be God's will for our lives?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is where I like to appeal to something called freedom and liberty.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom and liberty.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So my first three points were this: beware of misusing the Lord's will.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Second, beware of Christian mysticism.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the third is be content with God's will as revealed in his word.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then my fourth and final point is this: rest in your freedom and use it to serve the Lord.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Rest in your freedom and use it to serve the Lord.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord has a written will and we are to do it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Plain and simple.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: But what if buying a house or buying a car is not in his written word?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: What then?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that we have, with all other things, an incredible amount of freedom to choose.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to look at those three misuses of God's will that we looked at at the beginning.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take those and I want to reframe them using this system where outside of God's revealed will, there is great freedom.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at each of these, the first being rethinking our lack of action.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: How would we reframe that in this idea?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I once sat in a pastor's office, a mentor of mine, uh, struggling with the same thing.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is God's will for me?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether he wants me to take this job or stay in this job or go here or go there.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sort of paralyzed.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me and he said, Alex, you're treating God's will like a tightrope to fall off of.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: When in fact, I think you'll find in reality that the will of the Lord is a lot more like a canyon to climb out of.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you I was treating it as if I was gonna take one wrong step, and suddenly God was gonna wake up and just be like, oh, how'd Alex get over there?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord's will is much stronger than that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you've got to try pretty hard to find yourself out of the Lord's will, was his point.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so we don't need to be anxious.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: So long as we are living according to his revealed will, the idea is press on.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Press on.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a uh one of the big things in seminary was people who wanted to be be missionaries.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and many of my friends who wanted to be missionaries were frozen because they didn't know where they where they should go because they didn't feel like they had heard from the Lord yet.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a professor, he was a very wise man, and he would stand there and he'd say, Well, do you want to be a missionary?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say, Well, yeah, I want to be a missionary.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is there churches in, you know, where are you where do you want to go?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, India, okay.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is there churches in India?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's churches in India.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to know where your ministry is, this is my favorite thing, he said.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Look down at your own two feet.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's where your ministry is.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're here or there, you are to serve the Lord according to his revealed will.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: You want to go to India, go to India.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's people that you can serve there.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: So long as you're doing the revealed will of the Lord, press on.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to India, guess where your ministry is?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's in India.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So look down at your two feet.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: His point was: you can serve the Lord wherever you want to go.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can serve the Lord in a box with a fox.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Serve the Lord in a house with a mouse.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can serve the Lord here or there.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can serve him anywhere.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, to twist the words of Dr.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss, which I think is not politically correct anymore.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you can serve the Lord wherever you go, uh, and so you have great freedom to do that.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the second is rethinking our desires.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Rethinking our desires.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm a pastor, and many people think that uh to become a pastor, you must hear a very clear calling from the Lord.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably one of the most, uh probably to the most extreme that way, because you don't want to just lightheartedly go into being a pastor.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but Paul kind of approached it a different way.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said in 1 Timothy 3, as he's telling Timothy to appoint elders, he says this if any, it is a trustworthy statement, if any man aspires or desires the office of overseer or elder or pastor, it's a fine work he desires to do.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's okay to desire something.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to want to do something.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea Paul kind of gives us, let him pursue it, you'll find out whether he's qualified or not through his character.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because he goes on and says, uh, it's a fine work he desires he aspires to do, but the elder must be this, this, this, this, and this.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay that he desires to do it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let him pursue it.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: You will eliminate him through the process if he's not qualified.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my point is that it's okay to desire something, it's okay to pursue something without hearing explicitly from the Lord.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had a professor that had a professor, this is kind of how it works.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: He passed down wisdom.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this old man, he was uh he was known for sometimes filling in pulpits and here and there.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a young man, he said, came into their class one day, and at the end of class, he walked up to this wise old man and he said, Hey Doc, um our pastor, who who you know, you filled in for him a few times, um, has just up and left the church.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: He just left us.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we don't have a preacher, uh, and we're really looking for somebody to fill in.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we met as a congregation, and we really loved having you here, and we all agreed that you coming and filling in as our interim pastor would be our ideal situation.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh therefore, would you please pray about considering being our interim pastor?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the prof said, yeah, I'll do that.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll do what?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You'll pray about it?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, I don't need to pray about it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a need?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Am I qualified?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to pray about that.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: I desire to do it.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: He already knew that it was the revealed will of the Lord that that church should be served sacrificially.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that he could do it, and so he just says, Yeah, sounds good.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and at first stop, so many people think, oh, that sounds so unspiritual.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: But quite the opposite.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was walking according to the revealed will of the Lord.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't guessing.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So to sort of apply this, do you want to buy a house?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is buying that house going to prevent you from caring for your brother?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: If so, then maybe don't do it.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: But if not, can you use that house to serve the Lord?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then just do it.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be a mechanic?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Can you, I don't know why I said mechanic.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm sure there's mechanics in here.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do do you desire to be a mechanic?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Can you serve the Lord as a mechanic?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do people in the church have cars?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then be a mechanic.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can serve him anywhere.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had a friend that always said this, you're making it too complicated.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: If the word says it, just do it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: All else, do unto the glory of God.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says this.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians 5, 13, you were called to freedom, brothers.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: I say this to make the point.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't say that you have freedom so that you can just go out and do whatever you want to do all the time and say, well, God wants me to because it's my desire.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to take that freedom and use it as an opportunity to serve one another.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the freedom is for.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have great freedom, only don't use it for as an opportunity for the flesh.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever you do, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, as they pondered whether they're free to eat or to drink certain things.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Use your freedom not for your own selfish desires.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Use it to serve his purpose.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Use it to serve his revealed will in life.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then my final thought is this: rethinking our failures.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking our failures, uh, I'll say this.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to try and to fail.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to blame the Lord for that.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you fail due to your own shortcomings, and it's okay, by the way, to have shortcomings.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is not surprised by that.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord can, and he does use those failures to bring you along and to grow your character.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you are living according to his written will, even if you aren't, right?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you fail at your job, whatever you fail at, the Lord is still working in your life despite your failures, and he uses them according to his will, because when we are faithless, he is faithful.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the idea what you intended for evil, the Lord can use for good, and he does.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean we blame him when we fail.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is we have great freedom.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is we don't want it.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have great freedom, but we don't want it, because with great freedom comes great responsibility.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that responsibility, when it falls on our shoulders and we fail, the only person we can point at is ourselves.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't like that.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: We like to blame God instead and say, no, he told me to do it.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it must be his will that I failed.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: But even in my failures and my bad selfish choices and my story, even in spite of my failures, the Lord has remained faithful and has brought Lindsay and I both along step by step.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every step wasn't always fun, but looking back, even the ones that felt like mistakes taught us valuable lessons about the character of God and his faithfulness and about ourselves that we wouldn't trade for anything.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly not a salesman's income or two years of studying in Israel, although those are two nice things.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those things are very futile in the long run.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what we gain from those experiences will be everlasting.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we didn't fall off the tightrope, if you will.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've found ourselves nestled safely in the will of the Lord even in our failures.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: So to summarize my talk very briefly, um, my encouragement to you is to stay clear of Christian mysticism because we have his word to verify his voice.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to rely on feelings.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can't verify, we shouldn't assume, and we certainly shouldn't blame God for pursuing our own desires.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: We certainly shouldn't blame him when we fail.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is he's already revealed his will in his word, and my suggestion is that all else is freedom.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement is rest a little in that freedom.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be anxious.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't self-justify.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those are neither good nor are they necessary.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh rather, discover his will according to his written word, and then rest in your freedom for all else, as you use your freedom to serve him and his church according to his revealed will.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me pray, and then you can be dismissed.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the amazing grace and love you shown for us by not leaving us in the dark, but by giving us your great word, by which you reveal yourself to us and you reveal your will to us.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that you would help us to be students of that word, that we may know your will for our lives.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to, uh, as we walk in our lives and we come against things that are vague, things that we don't see in your word.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to uh wisely choose those things freely based on how they might best serve you and your body.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to do those things.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh be with us this evening as we walk out from here.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.