I heard of one pastor who had become concerned that folks were leaving their phones on and interrupting the service with the incoming calls and as the service began, he told the congregation… “Let’s turn our phones off, and turn on one another”….
So I trust we can get everyone turned on with the message today…..
The issue of the will of God can be the “Elephant in the room”….When we get together with a group of people who we know well, there are things everyone knows about, that no one wants to bring up or talk about. Everyone wants to avoid those areas because they stir up stuff we would rather not deal with. Those things are called the “elephant in the room”. The will of God can often be the “elephant in the room” that we don’t deal with because it would mean we might need to take a realistic look at our lives and that would mean changing the way we do life…. It would mean we can no longer ignore things we already know deep down inside, that need to be rearranged and done differently.
Acts 9:3 “And as he (Saul) journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. v4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? v5 And he said, Who are You, Lord”? “And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you persecute, it is hard for you to fight against the Holy Spirit. v6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what would You have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do”.
Notice that the first two questions Saul asked when he encountered the Lord…. Were… “Who are you, and What would you have me do”? The great transition in Saul’s life came with these two sincere questions that spontaneously came out of him. Which tells me, they were questions that he had been asking himself for some time, because he called him Lord!….
Just some thoughts as I was meditating on this subject……God’s will is not a stationary target, it is a living, moving Rubik’s cube of variables….It is not locked in, but is filled with adjustments that match the moment….and you can always get there from where you are. Right now you are on the threshold of that moving target which is the will of God. Where you are right now is the launching pad to the will of God, no matter where that is. God is constantly adjusting the directions on your spiritual GPS, to match the terrane you’re in and bring you there.
Stay away from still people….Still complaining, still hating, still losing, still broke, still blaming, still living in the past, still making excuses….
We received a testimony from our Granddaughter Zoe from Brazil… They got lost as they were trying to get to a remote village and came across a man whose house had burned down. He was sleeping on the ground in an area where there were cougars, with only his dogs to warn him. At night the rats would bite him and eat at his feet. The team helped him rebuild his home and led him to Jesus as his savior. They were on their way to one place but God’s will lead them to a place they hadn’t planned. David didn’t plan on fighting Goliath. He was just bringing lunch to his brothers, but on his way to something else, God planned for him to slay the giant!
If you shoot at nothing, you’ll hit it every time. If you expect nothing, you’ll get it every time. God prefers to use folks who have a plan, because to put together a plan for your life, means you have faith that at some point the plan is possible and do-able…. We are told that without faith it is impossible to please Him for He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him…
We need to remember that God’s will is not a road map, it is a relationship…(repeat) A road map is about where you’re going, a relationship is about who you’re going with… (He rewards those that seek Him) Abraham chose the desert with God rather than the fertile plans of Sodom without Him…. Moses said if you don’t go with me I will not Go…. The three Hebrews said, we’ll take bread and water with God rather than the kings dainties without Him…. Jesus told the disciples, follow me and I will make you fishers of men…..
In the great list of things we need, He is our greatest need….Heis the answer to the question, He’s the objective of our quest.God’s will is not hiding from any one of us, He wants us to find His will and to live our lives in that blessed place. Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and He delights in God’s way."
In Psalm 32:8, God says, "I will instruct You and teach You in the way which You shall go: I will guide You with My eye."
1 Peter 3:12 The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers:
We assume a lot, when we seek God’s will and ignore the word of God which we have been given. The scriptures are like the banks of a river, they give boundaries within which our lives can flow and they provide direction and guidelines for conduct, character, and Christian priorities while we move forward….
Benjamin Schmolke wrote the hymn, "My Jesus, as You Will" His home town was destroyed by fire. Two of his own children lost their lives in the flames. Later he himself became paralyzedand eventually he became blind. Yet he could sing his "Hymn of Trust that in the midst of everything, God’s greater plan would triumph"… The words are….
My Jesus, as You will, may Your will be mine! Into Your handsof love, I would my all resign.
Through sorrow or through joy, Lord lead me as Your own, and help me still to say, "My Lord, Your will be done."
God’s Spirit within the believer causes them to be sensitive to the movings and stirrings of the Lord’s leadings, so they can respond with discernment and insight. Knowledge comes through observing what’s around us, but wisdom comes as we respond to God’s Spirit within us….When I was a young man, I heard a veteran pastor say, “If God calls you to preach the gospel, and instead, you became president of the United States, you would have taken a step down”… (that lodged deep inside my spirit) If you are called to be president, fine, but stay in your calling……(I believe our president has been called of God in this place and this time) I believe he is a type of Joseph, who was sent by God into Egypt to save his people, to rescue the economy in a time of famine, and affect generations to come….
The bible tells us to establish everything by Two or three witnesses….Even Jesus had two witnesses with Him on the mount of transfiguration….I need to tell you, don’t rely upon some prophetic word alone to find God’s will for your life. Prophesy will come to confirm what God is already speaking to your heart and spirit. When God was speaking to Saul, in Acts 9:15, whose name He changed to Paul, He used Ananias to confirm His will. Then Barnabas vouched for Paul to the other disciples. Believe it, the connections you need are all included and provided in the will of God.
A man was crossing the Irish Channel one dark starless night, he stood on the deck by the captain and asked him, "How do you know the entrance to the Harbor on such a dark night as this?" He said, "You see those three lights? Those three must line up, and when we see them so aligned, we know the exact position of the harbor's mouth." When we want to know God's will there are three things which always concur —
The Spirit’s inward leading and prompting, the inspired Word of God, and the alignment of circumstances! God in the heart, impelling you forward. God in His Book, confirming whatever He says in the heart; and God in circumstances, which are His hand aligning and arranging….
What blessed assurance to know that God sustains us, God blesses us, God guides us, God empowers us, and God is with us.
2 Corinthians 13:1 “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established”. So let it be established before youtake action.
God is able to confirm His will without you blabbing to everyone. He’s able and He prefers to use folks who don’t even know your business. I’ve had folks that I never met before, suddenly say something to me that totally confirmed what the Lord was stirring in my spirit.
One more thing about getting two or three witnesses, Listenplease, if someone’s life is out of order and out of control, that is not a person to give you counsel. Someone whose marriage is messed up is not someone to receive marriage council from. Don’t go to someone whose finances are messed up to get financial advice….You never ask a thief to help you find the nearest policeman….
Brother Manual Herrera was over 90 years old and had dementia. I would try to go by and see him whenever I had been praying about some area God was dealing with me regarding the ministry. He would ramble all over the place and then look me square in the eyes and say something I knew was coming straight from God. I knew that it had to be God, because in his condition, what he would be saying was beyond his conscious skill level…. Certainly he was not the only witness I accepted before making a final decision, but sometimes he was one of the three….
Speaking of Bro Herrera, I came across Hymns to sing for Christians over 65 years old…. First we have, “Give Me the Old Timers Religion”
Then there’s “Precious Lord, Take My Hand, I’ve fallen and I can’t get Up”
Also we have “Just a Slower Walk with Thee”
And “Go Tell It on the Mountain, But Speak loudly please”
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I Have Seeing”
“Guide Me, Great Jehovah, I’ve Forgotten Where I’ve Parked The Car”
“Count Your Many Birthdays, Count Them One By One”
And we can’t leave out “Blessed Insurance, Jesus is Mine”
And last “It Is Well With My Soul, But My Back and Knees Hurt”
Often God’s leading is by the closed door …. God’s will can sometimes look like a closed door, but every closed door will point you to an open door. The problem is, we want the open doors before the closed doors slam in our face, but you would never get to the open door without encountering the closed door first. So often God will give you a restlessness in your spirit when He is up to something…. That restlessness may mean a physical relocation, or a new spiritual level that He’s bringing you into…
The Lord put a deep restlessness and unsettledness in my Spirit. I had prayed for some time to know what it meant, and the Lord said that it was time for me to leave my job, because He had another place for me. It was in 1972, when we took our first pastorate, in Wethersfield Ct. We were excited to be pastoring but then, 3 years later, we found out that the pastor who founded the church had made a deal with the city that he would build a building in 3 years. However he had told no one about it and suddenly, we were told that we could no longer meet in the building we were in. The variance had expired and would not be renewed. The previous pastor had left the denomination with bad feelings between them so they would no longer back the church for a restart. I was feeling to go back to college and further my ministry studies. But when we got to Lakeland, Florida, it was as though God wrote Ichabod on Lakeland for us. We figured when the doors close, you look for the open ones…. We came to Miami, where doors were open everywhere…. At the end of the year in Miami, we came to Key West to try out for the church here and the rest is history… That situation was a combination of open doors and revelation. Without knowing that Winnie had seen the same vision, we got here and decided to explore the island. We got a tourist map, and at the same time we both exclaimed that we had seen the island from the air. God had shown us separately this island at night from up above. The streets were lit up and we had no clue what we were seeing. It was a progression of open and closed doors that brought us here.
Everything you will do, is connected to what you’re doing now, with what you have now. It’s like connecting the dots to a drawing on a sheet of paper. It’s hard when you start, to make sense of it and you don’t know what it will look like until you connect all the dots, but as you connect one dot to another and another and another and so on, it begins to take shape and make sense!
Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” God has a purpose for your pain, a reason for your struggle and rewards for your faithfulness….
I said before that the will of God is an ever moving target…..William Wordsworth, the English poet, in one of his poems, tells about a bird that was carried from Norway by a storm. It fought hard against the gale winds in its effort to findits way back to Norway, but all in vain. At last it stopped its struggle and yielded to the wind, but instead of being carried to destruction it was carried to the warm shores of England, and to the green meadows and forests. So when we struggle against God's will we are actually fighting what He has chosen as best for us, But if we yield and cease our struggle, we will be brought to places of blessing and joy we never dreamed or imagined were possible.
Isaiah 30:18 “Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and He will be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you, for the LORD is a God of justice, and blessed are all those that wait for Him. v19 For the people shall dwell in Zion (under His rule and government) and you shall weep no more. He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cryand when He shall hear it, He will answer you. v20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of distress, your teachers shall not be hidden from you anymore, but your eyes shall behold your teachers, v21 and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, you shall walk in it”, when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left”.
Sometimes the Sinai desert can be 120 degrees in the daytime and freezing at night. When God led the Hebrews through the desert, it was by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The daytime cloud was the single most distinguishing feature of their encampment.
Now we can just imagine how it would be when the cloud moved forward and the people would get weary of following it. We read in the final verses of Exodus 40:36-37, "When the cloud movedfrom over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud did not move, then they journeyed not till the day that it moved". Sometimes it moved often, at other times not at all. So, imagine a family coming to a stop under the cloud's guidance in the middle of a hot 120 degree afternoon and immediately beginning to unpack their baggage. They take down their bedding and set up their tent. And then, no sooner have they got it all arranged, someone cries out, "The cloud is moving." And so they repack their baggage and start to move on again. One hour later the cloud stops. They say, "We're gonna leave our things packed this time and sleep on the ground." Well, they do. And the cloud stays that night and all next day and all that week. And as they are going into the second week the family says, "Well, we might as well get it over with." They unpack. And immediately the cloud begins to move again.
Now the people must have sometimes hated the unpredictable moving of the cloud by which God guided them. But no matter how much they hated the cloud they still had to follow its guidance. Because if someone had said, "I don't care if the cloud is moving; I'm going to stay right here," the cloud would have gone on, and they would have perished in the heat of the desert, or they would have frozen at night. They murmured about the way God chose to lead them, but by this means God was molding and unifying a nation of slaves, into a disciplined force that would one day be able to conquer the land of Canaan. And He was teaching them absolute obedience.
God’s will is built into each of us…His will, is integrated with the gifts, passions, anointings, abilities and talents he has given us, even though we don’t always understand what that looks like . God didn’t make a mistake when He made you who you are and He won’t make a mistake in choosing the path He has for you. If you don’t have much ability in math, He probably has not called you to be a rocket scientist… However we can misjudge His leading, His desires and His timing for us….
It’s like the man who is talking to God and he asked "God, how long is a million years?" God answers, "To me, it's about a minute." He says "God, how much is a million dollars?" God says "To me, it's just a penny." He says "God, may I have a penny?" To his surprise God says "Wait just one minute." ……His timing is not our timing….
In closing I want say that sometimes we need to pray the brick wall prayer. The Brick Wall Prayer is simply a way of handing control over to the Lord in our lives and acknowledging our own human weaknesses. It helps us remember that God is sovereign and always in control if we will just surrender and give it to Him.
Before we pray the Brick Wall prayer together, take a moment and surrender your plans, your own desires and ambitions to Him.. He knows better than you how to use them and where He is taking you….. Prayer together…. Father in heaven, you know me better than I know myself. You know my fears and my desires. You know how much I desire certain things. You know how much I will be disappointed if some things don't happen. I know you love me and I know you have the best planned for me. Please, Lord, don't let my desires blind me and cause me to miss Your will. If what I want is not within your plan for me, throw up a Brick Wall. Give me an obstacle I cannot get over, under, around or through. Help me to understand and follow your leading. Father, give me peace about whatever is to come. If what I want falls through, I will have joy in knowing that you have something better for me. So I submit to Your will and I pray that You would have Your way, in Your time, in my life and I Thank You, in Jesus Name….. Pastoral blessing……And now, may the peace of God that passes all understanding, gird your heart and mind, soul and spirit, as you surrender yourself into His plans and intentions. May the will of God be your motivation and desire, as you live life on purpose with all sincerity and transparency in seeking His truth and embracing His values in all you do. For His will is the place of provision, the place of wholeness, and the place of true freedom. May the blessing of His presence be your ambition, and may the glory of His countenance smile upon all you do. In His glorious name, amen!
