Biblical Counseling - God's Will: Sovereign, Moral & Individual
Bradley W. Maston · May 4, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492610216000

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we're hammering out God's will in view of biblical counseling. So what are some natural views of God's will? Views of God's will you've heard around? Anyone got one? How can you find out what God's will is? How about the open doors? If the door is open... If the door is open, walk through it. It must be God's will. Like when they put things out on the sidewalk. The door's open, just run.

Full-time? Oh man, that's everywhere, right? It must be God's will that I be in full-time ministry. Absolutely everybody must be, if you're going to be serving God. And then when we're cutting our grass and taking out the trash, then we'll find out that we're not doing full-time Christian ministry. It's a good one.

Anyone else? Follow the yellow brick road. Oh yeah. Come to a fork in the road, which one is the yellow brick road? It's kind of like you're blindfolded. I'd say that's a that I think we're absolutely going to hit the full-time Christians in full-time ministry. Most certainly. That's a pretty good. I like the it's funny. I've found that the Yellow Brick Road illustration is definitely one that I fall into a lot.

Like, I think I must be out of God's will because I'm not happy. Or I think I must be out of God's will. I wonder what I have to do to get back in God's will. And the thing that I feel like I'm out of God's will on is the job that I'm doing or what color I painted my house or whatever. It's like, oh, if I just painted my house green, then I'd be back on the Yellow Brick Road, and then I'd be happy again and back in God's will. You didn't click your heels three times. That's one of my favorite ones.

Blessings comes in there too. It seems like so many people, if I'm not being blessed, I must not be in God's will. And so they look at blessings as material things or whatever. It's the best life now gig, isn't it? If you're doing these things, you're in God's will. If you're in God's will, you're going to get a Mercedes. Maybe. The same thing with giving. The more we give, the more we're blessed. Yeah. Precisely. Has anybody heard the, follow the peace, follow the feeling of peace? You have God's will. If I have peace about it, then it must be right if I have peace about, you know, killing my neighbor's dog, then it must have been the right thing to do, because it helps me sleep at night.

So I think that's probably a misconception of God's will. What would the hyper-Calvinist view of God's will be? If anyone has any... Whatever happens, God wills it. Yeah. What is, is right. So I may as well just kind of sit on my couch and watch TV all day, because that's obviously what God wills, because that's what happened. That's actually Robert E. Lee's view. No kidding. He'd be out there on the battlefield, and people were dying. He'd say, God's will, God's will. That's why they lie. Yeah, exactly. That's why he was beaten by an alcoholic.

Amazing things. Wow, Robert Ailey. So, the hyper-Calvinistic view is something we can fall into. And honestly, I think this is hard to fall into. Well, it must be God's will. That must be God's plan. When's God going to get me out of this situation? It's kind of a hyper-Calvinistic view, in my mind at least. God's going to take me out of every situation. God's not looking to me to make a decision or anything like that. No, no, no, no, no. He's going to do it.

Yep, and then obviously, as we talked about, the last note that I have is the view of God's will that says, God wills for me to be rich, and all I have to do is follow these seven steps, these seven principles, whatever they are, and then, you know, usually involving a lot of positive thinking and buying the next book in the series. And so it is.

All right, so as we kind of opened up that can of worms, why would it be so important to hammer out God's will in a discussion of biblical counseling? Why is that something that's important? Because you can easily be misled into thinking any kind of counseling is biblical counseling.

And there you go, you're down a bunny trail. And possibly a really destructive one, right? I mean, if you read The Best Life Now, he occasionally references a Bible verse. Usually he takes it wildly out of context, but if you didn't know, biblically speaking, then you could wind up thinking God's will was something totally different than what it biblically revealed is. Because true believers really want to do His will. a conception of that that's not in line with the Bible, a conception of what God's will is, then we're going to wind up either... struggling. Yeah.

I was sitting in my Thursday night Bible study, and this topic came up with a couple of younger fellas. I just want to find out what God's will for my life is. I want Him to give me a passion, a road sign, a postcard, an email, something that lets me know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and where I'm supposed to be heading towards. It was pretty fantastic. The fellow was pretty frustrated, because he had it in his mind that God had this one job. for him to do, and he just didn't know what it was yet. And why is God being so mean and not telling me what it is I'm supposed to be doing?

You know, for my day-to-day income. Years go by, you find out it's not so much the outward as it is the inward. Amen. I think, I think, I have no doubt in my mind that's where we're going to end up today. So, and in the next four weeks. Fortunately, we get actually four weeks set aside to look at this. So, As we just talked about, I mentioned a couple of reasons.

Obviously, finding out what God's will is is going to be massively important in terms of giving good biblical counsel. If God does have an individual will for us as believers, or does have, as we look at our chart, Our sovereign will does affect us, and we give counsel that is adverse to that, we would not be giving good counsel, right? Okay. I guess it was rhetorical enough where you don't need to nod, but it encourages me if you do. So, good.

So, and it's actually a great coincidence that we are doing this. talking about God's will in a class on biblical counseling because the Bible is where actually we get all our information from on God's will. So it actually works out really well that this topic would be fit in this. It's kind of like a work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. But how can you work something out if you ain't got it?

Amen. I actually want to say, we're going to take the next three weeks basically looking at this chart, these three concentric circles. I was first exposed to this kind of graphic illustration of God's will in college, and I have to say that the most amazing thing about it is that even after a number of years, I still find myself slipping back into my natural views of what God's will is. I still find myself looking for the yellow brick road. I still find myself being affected by, you know what I mean, the errant views occasionally, and just going, wait a minute, you know that God's will is more akin to this picture than it is to, you know, all these other views that we're talking about. So for me, this is something that I've known intellectually for a while, but it definitely still struggles to apply in the day-to-day, sometimes.

What do we need? This outermost circle is God's sovereign will. And as it says, God's sovereign will is fixed and irreversible includes your position in Him. So what is, would someone like to sum up what we mean by sovereign or God's sovereign will? Does someone have something to offer on that? Good. That's it. You actually answered one of my questions later. So, which is good, because we're only two questions away from it.

So, our salvation is included in God's sovereign will, right? So what is the character, what's the nature of God's sovereign will? It's up there, but just by the word sovereign, what can we know about it? It's absolute? Yep. Is it negotiable? Nope, not so much. It says, God knows. Oh, sorry.

Where what are some areas of the Bible or that where we see God's sovereign will at play? We said we mentioned our salvation, our salvation is one. Where are some other areas where we see God's sovereign will at play in the Bible? We are either going to die or be raptured. And once we die, we will still be with the Lord. There you go. It's a great example. I mean, I think, and you've touched on what I think one of the best examples of God's sovereign will, which is the prophecy aspect. God has a plan for this world and how it's going to go.

And I think as we'll see, biblically speaking, we make choices every day. What kind of socks are you going to put on? What kind of gas you put in your car? All these things you make choices that that I don't believe that the Lord is controlling. And yet at the same time, the Lord does have control over the large, overarching plan, as we see in prophecy, Isaiah 7, 14, Daniel 5, 17 to 21. The Lord said this is going to happen and it happened. Period. So we see the Lord's sovereign will there. Additionally, do we all have our Bibles available? Anybody? Oh, and you've got Purex too. Fantastic.

So if someone wants to grab Malachi 3.6 and another Hebrews 13.8, it's going to tell us, these verses talk a little bit about God's sovereign will. So whoever finds it first is more than welcome. So he's talking about God's sovereign will. What do we observe from that?

I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, you, the sons of Jacob, are not consumed. We should briefly observe about that. The Lord doesn't change. Pretty easy, right? Probably sounded too simple. Yeah, which I believe is the hard definition of the word immutable. Unchanging. So the Lord does not change. Good.

So we've got, just to recap, we've got the biblical prophecy aspect, the control of the big picture of what's going on with the world, the plan for Satan, the plan for Christ was a part of God's sovereign will, as we talked about before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1 tells us. So this is the sovereign will that's not changing. And also, as we talked about, we alluded to already, What is that? What does God's sovereign will have to do with our salvation?

Does someone want to? Oh, wait. Who's got three? He was 13. Sorry. Jesus Christ. The same yesterday and today and forever. Yeah. So Jesus Christ was the same yesterday, before, in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ was the same yesterday and today and forever, tomorrow. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Praise the Lord.

And then, highly related to that comes God's sovereign will in our salvation. Who can pull Ephesians 1, 5, and 6 from memory? Ephesians 1, 5 and 6. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will to the praise and glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

There it is. I've been thinking, actually, and then if someone wants to look for John 1028, maybe we could do kind of like a Thursday night Bible school thing. I'll bring lollipops. Shout out verses. Whoever gets it gets a lollipop. We can race towards it. At least it always worked for us. Someone have John 1028? And I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. Fantastic.

So that's God's sovereign will as displayed in our salvation. Right? We don't... Actually, we've got a whole elective where we're going week after week. sovereign will about our salvation, our position in Him. Yeah, isn't that amazing? And that's probably what we'll fall hardest upon when we get to next week when we study Google Counseling. Why is it so important that our salvation is placed in God's sovereign will, God's immutable and unchangeable will?

If it was in man's will, we'd be in big trouble. You'd be in really big trouble. And in addition to that, if we gave someone advice that said, oh, you can never lose your salvation, but you actually could, biblically speaking, which you can't, then we would be giving bad advice. We would be giving poor counsel, right?

There are too many clauses in that sentence, but the principle comes out true. There are people who go around telling people can lose your salvation, and that impacts their mindset, and how they live, and what their hope is, and what they're concerned about. So it does make a big difference, a huge difference, just to get that settled.

If you didn't believe in your eternal security, if you believe that you had anything to do with your salvation, you will not understand the character of God. You can't. I think every new believer goes through that because he's got to learn through understanding that God loves him, loves him enough to secure him forever. But I think that it may be true of each new believer, but if you're in a church situation where that's the way it's taught, it gets real rough.

We're sitting here talking about God's sovereign will, and it's a wonderful thing to be able to just trust in that and not be worried, am I going to stay the church had a prayer meeting entirely focused on this one person salvation. This happened to be at a time and place where they were worried about this person's salvation because they had gone to a movie. Maybe not that much. And that's the reality.

I love your point that most young believers have to go through that. Why do you think we do? Why do we always assume? It gets you in the Word. Yeah, that's true. It gives you a little fire to actually search and dig for it. I honestly think we always try because we cannot believe grace. Because we cannot believe grace could be that amazing. We cannot believe grace could be that good. We always try to impute upon God our human characteristics.

Well, I might be willing to, if I were God, I might be willing to give everything to save people, but I'd still have a butt clause in there. I'd still have a, you know, a banana peel clause or something where you could slip out just to keep people in line, because that's what you need. We need some of that to keep people in line, right?

It takes us a while to realize how good God is, how big God's grace is. So I think that's really, it almost kind of goes from that head intellectual understanding to the actual point of believing faith in what we know in our head a little bit. Not only that, what it does, it draws out that old man that it can be seen as the way it is. If you're not established in that grace. There you go. I think, marvelous.

We'll have actually a lot more time to talk about this next week. So we can't spend all of our time on God's sovereign will, as much fun as it is. And it is kind of the most fun, because it's one of the easiest ones to deal with. It's really impossible to goof it up. So I'm more comfortable talking about that all day.

Okay, so here's the question. Can we break God's will or can God's will be broken then? I'm asking this at the end of the section for a reason. Right? God's... I think we might be moving in the right direction then. What does it mean when the Bible says, He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to eternal life? Does that mean that since God is not willing that any shall perish, that none shall perish? Nope. Nope. Nope. Couldn't be that. Couldn't be that.

So can God's will be broken. ignored, but not necessarily broken, because once you choose to trust in the Lord, then you're in His unbroken will. There's a fascinating thing that God has this sovereign will, and yet at the same time He's not willing that any should perish, and yet He allows it to be so. on if you believe that all people are written in the Book of Life. Some believe that they're only written in the Book of Life once they're saved. Some believe that all are written in the Book of Life but at death or at the Great White Throne.

I would have to look into that more. I haven't spent enough time on said book to really be able to speak authoritatively. So, as we move into this, we've got this sovereign will that's absolutely unbreakable. As we move into God's moral will, the moral will of God, we'll find that is everybody sovereignly, without any choice, living according to God's moral will? No, not very much. Hard to read the newspaper and back up the opinion that we are. I mean, I can't even, honestly, I can't even drive to church without speeding and breaking the law at some level and then I'm outside of God's moral will again. So, the next circle in it is obviously God's moral will.

How do we know, or what would How would you characterize God's moral will? Or say, and I just did, God's moral will, what comes to your mind? How would you define that? Beholding His moral glory in Christ. Like that? What would be included in God's moral will? What would that band, what would that circle chiefly be concerned with? What does the word moral mean? Hey, it's bad to kick my neighbor's dog. It's good to do this, it's bad to do this. Things of that nature are kind of what I'm talking about.

So how do we know what God's moral will is? Where is that revealed? In Scripture. Anywhere else we get a little... We get a little insight into God's more will possibly. I don't have actually stereo hearing, so. Ten Commandments, nine of which are all repeated in the New Testament. In the life of Christ. There we go. Life of Christ lived out in us. You know, we notice there's all these lists throughout the New Testament.

Tell us, hey, this is bad. This is good. Thieves. Stop, you know, in Ephesians, stop stealing. I mean, obviously, as they're living out the life of Christ, as they behold him through the revelation that they have, they will hopefully stop stealing. But Paul still felt like it was necessary to say, hey, and by the way, if you're stealing, that's not living out the life of Christ. By the way, if you're using a lot of foul language, crude language, and offending other people, that's not living out the life of Christ.

Can we, just in the illustration and what we've talked about so far, can we break God's moral will as believers? Very, very easily, huh? Can we, by breaking that moral will, break out of his sovereign will, being our salvation? I think that is the distinction between position and condition. that our position is irreversible, untouchable, God's sovereign will. But in my daily condition, I'm either living consistent with who I am, my position, and God's moral will, or not. But if you decide, well, let's see, I feel like I don't really need to really do all of that.

And then, of course, you're grieving the Holy Spirit, and it isn't a round circle anymore. It's kind of kinked and thorny. You grieve the Holy Spirit. And when are we tempted to fuzzy the lines? When are we tempted to try to ignore or kink the circle or whatever? When the popsicle looks more delicious. Exactly! When it works out in my favor. I probably shouldn't have said that to that person, but he really deserved it. It made me feel so much better. I probably shouldn't have taken that, but, eh, you know.

The sin nature is the source of the desire for pleasure. So then, if you look in the middle of this page here, it says, he allows his moral will to be broken or fulfilled based on human choice regarding our dependence on the sin nature or the Holy Spirit. And a brief reference back to the biblical anthropology section, talking about the will of the believer. So how can we, and just very briefly, how can we live in God's moral will?

By trying really, really hard, right? By beholding Him. By abiding in Him. I think of Peter walking on the water, and he took his eyes off the water. Sometimes it feels like it. Amen. That's it. Boy, look what I'm doing. I don't know. Would it be good to talk to this person about conditioning? They're looking for answers. They may be strugglers. rather than a condition or a position. You know what I'm saying? Where it comes to a reality of life.

If I if I'm tracking with you and please correct me if I'm not, it definitely kind of brings to light, you know, Paul writing to the first Corinthians. First thing he kind of opens up with. And here's obviously possibly the most goofed up church in all of our New Testament scriptures, say maybe the Galatians, because they'd gotten off onto a track that seemed to even concern Paul more. But he starts off being legalism. He starts off telling them that the Lord will confirm you and the Lord and telling them that they're saved and they're this and they're that, spends all this time kind of confirming.

And then, you know, there's a round about chapter three, late chapter two says, now let's talk about how screwed up you are. But not until, you know, we've talked about that you're, you are who you are. So there's a. There is an element at which we're being conformed to our position and a molding, like you're talking about, at least in the view, if I'm hearing you correctly.

Scripture does address believers, including the Corinthians, who all describes your fleshly. come alongside one another and counsel one another in the truth. Actually, we might be cutting into discussion for a future date when we start talking about these different wills, but I know some of the people that I very much love and respect said, after you kind of go systematically through position, condition, or eternal security, or whatever, they say, well that's well and good, you've proved it to me, I agree with you, but if you just let everybody know this, everybody just run around and be crazy, and just live in sin, and because they know that they're once saved, always saved, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, it's like, well, the question, at least in my heart is, do we teach truth because it's true, or do we teach truth based on the effect that we think, humanly, it will have on someone else's flesh? Generally speaking, that's the way I would lean.

But there's a huge school of people who believe out there, believe in eternal security, in their heart, see it in scripture, a whole deal, but refuse to teach on it, because they're afraid it'll make people just go wild, and go hog wild and be, you know, sin, because they're not... live in sin, because they're not...

Wow! And that's because they don't understand grace. That's the only reason why. Because basically holding that sword over people is legalism, is law. And they want to hold the threat over people and think somehow people need law. Christ died on the cross so we would die to the law. Why do we need to deny that and bring it back in? I think we're back to that, trying to give God our characteristics, versus behold his, and behold his son.

I overheard one conversation between one pastor and another, along this very line. And the one pastor who was sort of the learner, younger learner in the process, was concerned about teaching grace. He says, how are you going to keep them straight? And the other pastor said, who keeps you straight? I have a computer program. It's called lawbot.com.

No. No. So that's it. And Jeremy, as Jeremy pointed out a couple weeks ago, that for us to sit around and trying to police other people's sin and police other people's situation there is really us trying to supplant the Holy Spirit's role in their life. Elaborate on that a little bit.

I have no problem. I mean, I wish there were Jewish oftentimes. I played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in high school, and I really enjoyed that experience. But I wasn't quite sure what you were getting at. Thank you. I didn't clear that up. I'm sorry. I'm a little slow on the uptake occasionally. All right.

We're going to talk a lot about what God's moral will is about and what role that's going to take in counseling and what the consequences are of being outside of God's moral will, but I think the most important thing for us to understand as we're looking at this is that you can't break that will so effectively as to shoot you outside of the outermost circle. It's not possible. You can't get enough momentum from the other side of the circle to that side to break through.

Just like those wrestlers who go against the ropes of the rings. It's amazing. These 400-pound guys bash into the ropes. They never seem to break. So we are firmly fixed in that, regardless of what happens. Alright, so the will of God for the individual. Well, this is the fun one. This is the one that I think gives us the most trouble.

I had a friend, actually. He was a pastor at a church I went to in college. He was a military chaplain for a number of years at West Point? I'm not sure. At some place where there's a lot of young men. And he said the young men, the guys that come in, They'd ask something to the effect of, how do I find out what God's will for my life is? And he'd just look at them and say, what's her name? The guys always start asking that question when they're thinking about getting married. Is that the person I'm supposed to marry? And so on and so forth. So that was his conditioned response to anyone asking him such questions.

What are we really looking for, do you think, when we start asking, what's God's will for my life? I think you pointed out very well that as believers, we just have an innate desire, or at least as we walk in the Spirit, we have an innate desire to please the Lord. We have an innate desire to fulfill His will.

We do want that. And so we might look, as with our parents or with a boss situation, I mean, this way we can see whether or not that will be true, whether this is my mate for life, for him. And we'll definitely get to discuss that. We will most certainly get to discuss that topic, because that's, actually, we'll get there soon. But I kind of want to get at this.

What are we looking for when we start asking these questions? I can tell you what I'm looking for, but start asking, what's God's will for my life? What's God's will for my life? Meaning, should I take this job? Should I take this? Should I wear these socks or those? Should I get married? What car should I buy? The Chevy or the? What am I really looking for most of the time?

Common sense. Well, that's ultimately going to be a big part of our solution. I don't know about you. That's what I'm looking for. I want easy answers. I want the postcard. I want the road map. I want the instruction book. I want, you know, OK, then you're going to get a job at this place and work for 13 years. You want an email from heaven.

Exactly. So I can know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And at the end of life, God will give me my cookie. I remember at the time when I was It was greetings from Uncle Sam. Well, and this is definitely, like I say, we'll dig into this more.

This is definitely something that we struggle with, I think, a bit more in our capitalist American kind of, oh, we're so absolutely free, we can do pretty much whatever we want context that maybe in other parts of the world. I mean, if you live in a world where at seven years old, you're going to the sweatshop and you have to work seven days a week, 10 hours a day, you don't have a whole lot of time to sit around and go, I wonder if God wills for me to go somewhere else and become a doctor. You know that if God wanted me to do something besides go to the sweatshop every day, or work in the farm every day, he'd have to tell me and provide supernatural means for me to do so. So I think in America with all the choices before us, with all the options before us, we think, oh, well, there's got to be some yellow brick road. There's got to be some place where I'm actually supposed to be.

And then the question would be, is that something we see in scripture, that God has dictated this out? So we do see God having an individual will for some people that he supernaturally communicates to them, right? In scripture, we do occasionally see that. But the one thing is, you look at that instance, here are the apostles during the era of miracle over a period of about three decades, and those kinds of directions, go here, not there, are rather rare.

Even then? Yeah, even in that instance where you expect lots of miraculous direction, it's rather unusual to see those instances, even in this era of miracles and phenomenal impact from little decisions. You're absolutely right. And then not only that, it took more than human guts to go back where you were going to yet still in the constraints of the brethren.

And additionally, in Scripture, when we see those rare exceptions in the New Testament, in Acts and following, you don't get a whole lot of the sense of, maybe God is willing me to do this, possibly. It's usually pretty clear, right? I mean, it's not even usually. When God has an individual will for someone, He has a tendency to communicate it very clearly with that person.

There's no, I think it might be, for me to do this. Found in scripture, right? Can you think of an example where God might have come in a dream in scripture? Or the Lord might have had an individual? I just don't have one personally. I don't know if someone who knows the word better than I do can think of such an instance. Because I can't. I'm coming to a few. I'm sorry? I'm coming to a few.

God's individual will and his moral and sovereign will. I think of Paul saying, you know, I desire to come and see you. But if it wasn't in God's hand, he would have probably wanted to go. Yeah. I mean, if I'm really concerned about God's individual will for me in my life, Do I have a full understanding of his sovereign moral will? That's what I'm asking. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, fantastic point.

When I look back, of all those circumstances, circumstances bring. Yeah, and I think Paul is also an incredibly special case in Scripture, you know. He obviously had his individual will to go see the people he loved and go do this and that, but I feel like, I think in Scripture it's very easy to back up that he had more direction than I did.

As far as God had a plan, I mean from day one, I will show him how much he's going to suffer for my name. He's never said that to me or about me. Oh, well, I'll have to take your word for it. Not having the. You know, one thing is that Paul's Paul had clearly indicated to him God's individual will in certain respects when he was in prison. He was right where God wanted him to be because he wasn't going to go anywhere else. And even if he desired to go here, desired to do that, as long as he was there, that's where he was. And there wasn't any question.

And it's interesting that we can go through periods of time in our life where Really, the options may not be there. Other paths may not be there. The Lord may just make it pretty clear that this is where we're supposed to be. Yeah, I may have some desire to go to France or go to Europe or something, but the reality is if I couldn't leave work and provide for my family, that would be pretty much hemmed up. Probably not going to go. It's usually contrary to our nature. where he could exist. I think God's like a tall prison so he'd have time to write. Yeah, because otherwise he'd be on the go all the time. He'd never slow down. And in contrast, right, Peter is in prison and the Lord steps into his situation and brings him out and says, this time you're going to preach in the temple, next time you're going to run out of town.

Okay? Got that all set up. It's pretty cool. So the Lord does, you know, reach in to individual situations. Yet, there's a sentence there in the middle that says, Scripture conveys that God, within God's sovereign will and his moral will, are given a great... I'm sorry. I've got a bad printer. It's my fault. We are on page 11? 14?

14. I told you my printer is miserable.

So, we're in the section, The Will of God for the Individual, and it's about the center sentence. It says, Scripture conveys that within God's sovereign will and his moral will, we are given a great measure of freedom to choose the course that we will follow. While we do have choices to make, what seems to be most consistent with Scripture is that our fellowship with Christ in the midst of life's circumstances is what is most important.

How does that sound? Does anyone react massively in a negative way to that? And I think God knows your choice before you even are going to make. Yeah. Without question. Without question. Someone want to pull open First Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12. Love to hear that verse.

So here, I mean, what we're seeing and as we get into this freedom, peace and life section is that there's no yellow brick road for most of us, most of the time. And if there is a yellow brick road, God won't it won't be on fuzzy terms. As far as, you know, should you take this job or that job, if God wants you in that job, he'll put you there. But chances are, God doesn't give a lick whether you go to this job or that job, just so long as you're abiding in Him, pursuing Him, and following Him in that context. If you can be conformed to His image here, if you can be conformed to His image there, you're still doing what He wants for you. You're still completing His will for you.

Who's got 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12? and that you study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. I love that. To mind your own business versus... Child, work with your hands. Love the people around you. It's just...

At first it's scary, because once again, like we said, like Bonnie pointed out, I want the easy answers. I want to know exactly, God designed me to do this, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's like, you know, maybe I'm not quite as important as I thought I was. Maybe what's really important is pursuing the Lord and being conformed to His image, and what's not quite as important is how I function in the world. We have a tendency to think that once we get all of these courses completed, then we'll be able to be ministers of Christ. No, I think He does it all through everyone. Isn't it amazing?

Young believers, believers who know nothing, don't know eternal security from anything. They don't know anything about the Bible, but they know that Jesus came, loved them, and died for them on the cross to save them. These people can be the most effective people in saving, because they're contagious. They saw, they've so recently seen God's grace, and they're like, wow, I've got to tell somebody.

This is huge. And here they are. They couldn't be mature Christians. Well, yeah. It's just amazing. I worked in Young Life for a number of years, and to see kids come back to school after they really encountered the Lord, really came to a point of belief, and just be on fire to tell other people about Jesus and go, wow. What did they get that I didn't get? That I forgot. It's really impressive.

The freedom that comes with that is really intense. When we get that ingrained view, and we've only got a few more minutes, when we get that ingrained view of that there's a yellow brick road, or that we're outside of this or outside of that, or God wants me to write books, or I'm running away from whatever it is.

You get people who say things like, I know it's God's will for me to be in full-time ministry, but I'd really like to build chairs or put down floors. I think that's what I'd really like to be doing. But that couldn't be God's will for my life. I really need to be working for the church or whatever it is. I mean, how silly. Precisely. It's amazing. So this, as we get down to the final section here, this is why it's so important. This is why it's so important in biblical counseling. almost guaranteed there's someone in your life right now who's asking these questions.

What's God's will for my situation? What's God's will for my suffering with this? Either I want an easy answer, or I know that there's an answer, or I believe there's an answer out there that God wants me to do either this or that. So I'm going to cast lots. I mean, whatever it is. And it's God's function for the body of Christ that you would be that voice that points him to Scripture and says, actually, no, this is... Make the choice that seems best. Make the choice that seems best, and by godly wisdom, make the choice that seems best that will allow you to be conformed to Christ. It's just not that complicated. So I guess as we move forward, this last little apply, apply, apply section is really more for me than anything else.

Because I've, like I say, intellectually known this for so long, and yet, as I walk out in my day-to-day life, I catch myself thinking, oh, this must not be God's will for my life. I don't like this job. In my last job, I was fairly unhappy. My current job, I like a great deal, but I still will fall back into things that I know are wrong. So I still have to examine, I think, examine my thinking when it goes bad. Because if I don't, if I don't, if I'm not applying it, if I'm not believing, I'm not reckoning it is true, then when someone else needs that counsel, that advice, I'll be able to say, well, let's pray over it and find a yellow brick road for your life.

Right. So is. OK. Does anyone else have any other comments? We are obviously out of time. Just thinking in the area of thinking about God's will on our counsel. I think it's different places where the scripture uses words like encourage, stimulate. In other words, it isn't a matter of ordering people, do this, don't do that, stop that, slam on the forehead. Instead, what you see in a number of places, there's encouraging, there's stimulating, there's encouraging. And sometimes thinking through, how do we do that? I'm asking the Lord for wisdom on how to go about doing that. Because I think all of us, we'd probably respond better to encouragement, stimulation, somebody ordering us to do something or finding us on the forehead, telling us what we're good at. It's just a valuable set of words to ponder. Just the way that scripture uses racist means to appeal. That actually goes in line with my new idea when they make me governor.

I'm going to instate the goodness police, and there'll be police who will roll around, and you see the Christmas tree, right? Of course, it won't be red and green, or red and blue, it'll be green and yellow or something. And you'll get pulled over, and they'll say, hey, I just noticed you were going the speed limit. Here's 50 bucks. Have a good day. I think that we'd have more people going the speed limit if we had the goodness police out there. Maybe not. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful study. Thank you that you've revealed your will. in your word. And Lord, thank you that really that this is all a wonderful adventure of getting to know you and growing in your likeness and image, Lord, that you are conforming us to the image of your wonderful Son. Lord, please let us keep this with us as we go through our weeks. Let us give this information. Lord, let us give your word. Let us lead others to behold your Son, who are in our lives, who you've placed in our lives, that we might point them towards you. In Jesus' name, Amen.