Gateway Church's Podcast
Knowing God's Will for Your Life
Well, once again, good afternoon, and it is my distinct privilege to introduce our guest this weekend. His name is Jimmy Evans, Pastor Jimmy is no stranger to Gateway, but some of you that are new to Gateway, Pastor Jimmy serves as the apostolic elder for our fellowship, and as well as his capacity as senior pastor at Trinity Fellowship, Amarillo. He has had an integral part in starting Gateway and being a part of us for the past 10 years, and he along with his wife, Karen, serve as the host for Marriage Today, which are seen in a billion homes all across the world. So would you give a warm Gateway welcome this weekend to Pastor Jimmy Evans? I'd like to thank you to you there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Well, it is great to see you guys and great to be here. Pastor Robert is an Amarillo in the North Pole. Pray for him. How many of you are tired of winter? I'm protesting. I'm not participating next year. I've already—I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but great to see you guys. If you have your Bibles there, turn to Jeremiah 29, and every time I come, I see a lot of new faces, and this church is growing, and I know that you guys are moving into your new building, and I'm just totally excited about it, and just so proud of what God has done through you guys. I want to talk tonight about knowing God's will for your life. The most important thing in the world is knowing Jesus Christ. But second to that is knowing God's will for your life, knowing why you were created in your mother's womb. There was a poll done years ago, a secular poll across America, believers and non-believers, and they asked people, "If you could only ask God one question, what would you ask Him?" And the number one response was, "Why am I here? What's your will for my life?" And so I want to talk about the good news about God's will for your life. This is this message. We'll encourage you. I promise it. We'll encourage you. So I'm going to talk to you about four things that are good about God's will for your life. And the number one thing is this. God loves you and always has a good plan for your life. God's in love with you and He always has a good plan. Now this is Jeremiah 29. I'm sure you've seen this. Maybe you've memorized it. Jeremiah 2911, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you," says the Lord, "Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope." And I know that you may have seen that scripture before because it's so incredibly encouraging to all of us, but that was spoken to a nation in judgment. Not for generations had warned Israel and they were compromised, sinful people. And they were His people and God came to them and warned them over and over and over. And He said to them, "If you don't heed this warning, I'm going to send judgment on you as a nation." And they didn't heed the warning. So as Jeremiah is speaking here, the Babylonians have conquered them and they're taking them into captivity for 70 years. And God comes in the midst of the judgment and in the midst of all that's happening and He says, "Now I know the thoughts that I have toward you. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and hope might seem like interesting times for God to say that." But there's a reason He says it, and I'll talk about it in just a minute, but the King James Version says, "Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end." What you're hoping for. The Amplified Version says, "To give you hope in your final outcome." But here's the message Bible, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out. Plans to take care of you and not abandon you. Plans to give you the future that you hope for." These are God's word to this nation that is coming under judgment. Now, your concept of God is the most important thing in you being able to hear God. Your concept of who God is, if you believe that God is a loving God, it's going to be real easy for you to hear God because God is a loving God. But if you have a distortion in your concept of God, then you're going to have a hard time hearing from Him because He is a loving God, and His desire is always good for us. It's never evil. When I grew up, I had a distorted concept of God. I didn't know that God loved me, and I didn't really believe that even knew me very well. I honestly didn't. One time we came to church about 30 years ago, I was a member of Trinity Fellowship in Amarillo before I became the pastor. And we came to church one Sunday, and when we came to church—actually, it was on a Wednesday night—we came to church. And the pastor walked over, and we were seated—there were maybe 50 people, and I was seated to the back, and he looked at me, and he gave me a prophetic word. Let me tell you, I don't remember what the prophetic word said, but the thing that was significant about the word was, "God knew me," because when He spoke the word, it was accurate. And I left the building that night thinking, "God knows me. God must be paying attention to me," because there are 6 billion people in the world, and sometimes you're wondering, "Does He really know me?" Yes, He really does know you, and He really does love you a lot. But understand, it's the devil's full-time job to distort our concept of God, and pain failure and sin is how He does it. Now you've heard of the horse whisperer and the dog whisperer? The devil is the hurt whisperer. And any time we go through tragedy in life, or any time we fail, any time we fail, He's always there to interpret it and to tell us about God, ourselves, and others in a distorted way. In Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve were put in paradise in the presence of God, and that's what God's will was. God's will is always good. We started in a paradise with God, we're ending in a paradise with God. The beginning and end of the Bible are the same, except it gets better. And our failures did not shoe God away from loving us. And in the Bible, the devil came and began to accuse God to Adam and Eve. He doesn't love you. Why did He tell you you couldn't eat of that fruit? He must not love you. He's against you. His word isn't true, and they sin. And when they sinned, Genesis 2.25 says they were naked without shame. And the first thing that happened when they fail is they covered themselves with fig leaves and they hid from God. And when God came, He says, "Why are you hiding? What have you done?" And Adam says, "I was ashamed because I'm naked." And God said this, "Who told you you were naked?" Well, let me say this, God never asked a question to get the answer. Do you know that? I'd ask a question, so we'll get the answer because the devil comes by stealth. That's why he was a serpent. He doesn't reveal himself. We are his perfect disguise. He doesn't want us to know that it's him. He speaks to us in a way that it's camouflaged, but he implants thoughts in our mind. And when they fail, Satan came and slithered up. He had already accused God, and now he came to them and said, "You're defective." Well, they weren't defective. He made them perfect and beautiful without any shame whatsoever. But their sin was an open door for the devil to whisper a lie into their soul that caused them to not be able to relate to God or each other. Every tragedy, every tragedy, every sin, every failure in our lives is an open door, and the devil will always use that open door to convince us that God is finished with us. He can't possibly love us, that we are under judgment, and that God's finished with us. He always does it. He did it my life. He always does. And so in the nation of Israel now, they are going into captivity. They're under judgment, and they're going into captivity, and their enemies are telling them that God is finished with them. I mean, the circumstances tell them that God's finished with them. And God comes in that environment, and he says to them, "I know my thoughts toward you." You know, listen, have you ever had an argument with someone, and they're telling you what you're thinking? Maybe your wife, or maybe your wife, possibly maybe even your wife? And I'm saying, because they do this. That's what Karen does. She said, "I know. You think I look back in these pants. I know what you think. You think I look up. And I'm thinking, "Are you crazy enough to think I'm going to tell you what I'm thinking?" I said, "I know what I'm thinking." I said, "You like my hair better the other way, that's what you're thinking." No, that's not what I'm thinking. I didn't like it that way either. Men have died in those conversations. But you ever had those arguments with someone, and they're telling you what you're thinking? In the price of frustrating, isn't it? This is an unusual way for God to speak. Now listen, listen to what God says, Jeremiah 29.11. I know the thoughts I think toward you. He's arguing with a group of people telling me what he's thinking. You think we're no good. You think that it's over for us. We know what's going on here, God. You're coming and you're judging us and you're taking us out of the land and you're thinking, "We're done. We're done." God comes back and argues his position. He says, "I know what I'm thinking. Don't tell me what I'm thinking. I will tell you what I'm thinking, and here's what I'm thinking, peace and not evil. I've got a future and a hope for you." That's what I'm thinking. I've got something to say to you. I know you've been through problems. I know you've had pain. Maybe you've had disaster and maybe you've failed. But I've got news for you regardless of what the devil says, regardless of what circumstances say, regardless of what anybody says, God has a future and a hope for you. That is his will. And so when we come and we're going to find God's will, you have to begin with a right concept of God. He doesn't throw people away. That was the reason Jesus died on the cross. He came to redeem us from our problems, not reject us because of them. He always has a good plan for your life. Number two, good thing about God's will for our lives is God's will for our lives was established in our mother's womb and has never changed. God doesn't have like Plan A and Plan B, God just has Plan A. In our mother's womb, God created us and that's where He established His will, Psalm 139. You formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed and in your book they were all written. The day's fashioned for me when there was not one of them. How precious also are your thoughts toward me? Oh God, listen to this. How great is the sum of them? If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand and when I awake. The Bible says that God made us in our mother's womb, anybody believe that? I don't believe it's a blob, I believe it's a baby. From conception. That God is doing a work in our mother's womb and for nine months He's thinking about our life in detail. The psalmist says, "Your thoughts are so vast toward me that they cannot be numbered." God has thought through every detail of your life and there is one day of your, the Bible says all the days of my life were written down when there was yet one of them. God detailed out every day of our life before we were ever born. And what we would do and what we would accomplish and what His will was for us and all of those things. So I'm not an afterthought, you're not an afterthought. And what we have a tendency to do is to compare ourselves with other people. The world wants to tell us what valuable is and what right is. Television shows and movies and magazines and worldly standards and they say, "Well, if you look this way, then you're significant. If you don't look that way, you're not. If you have this much money, you're significant. If you don't, you're not." And all these things. But I'll say this, when God created you and your mother's womb, He created you right. And when you go look in the mirror and when Hollywood or someone else is wanting to tell you that somehow you're defective because you don't look like this or you're not like this or whatever, you understand. People don't tell us what right is. God tells us what right is. And right is what He did in our mother's womb. He made you right. And we've got to battle this comparison thing and causing someone else to tell us what right is. Listen to this. Listen. Something will never be right between you and God until you thank Him for who you are and how He made you. Everything will never be right. There will always be a lack of intimacy. There will always be a disconnection in our lives until we can wake up in the morning and say to God, "God, thank You for who You made me to be because You created me and my mother's womb and You've detailed out my life." Number three, significant thing about God's will for our life. Our mistakes and the devil's attacks don't cancel out God's will for our lives. And I know that some of us here, you know, you would say, "Jimmy, I'm sure that God made me in my mother's womb." But when God made me in my mother's womb, you know, I was a little innocent baby, but I've had a lot of hardships since then and I've done a lot of things wrong since then. And I'm sure that even though God loved me then, I mean, I've gotten off the path and I've spent a lot of time off the path. Romans 11-29, and this is one of the things that we need to remember, it says, "The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable." The gifts and calling, gifts plural, but you only have one calling. And everyone is called. Not a few preachers are called. Every single person is called. And he says here, "The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and every time that we go through a problem in life, the devil's always there saying, "Well, God can't use you now." You've done that too many times. You've failed too many times and God has finished with you now. He can't forgive you for that one. The devil's always chanting that in our ears. And here is what God says in Jeremiah 29-14, "I will be found by you," says the Lord, "and I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you," says the Lord, "and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive." See, when they were taken into captivity, it looked as though that God was finished with them. But what God said to them is, "I'm bringing you back." As surely as you're leaving, I'm going to bring you back. Now I want you to listen to me just a minute. In the car, maybe you have a car that has one of these navigation systems in it. You know the thing that tells you where to go, and the Tom Tom or whatever the brands are. I've got one in my car. When I get in there, sometimes I don't know where I'm going, you know, you put the address in there and the lady talks to you the whole way, and I like her a lot. I really like her too much, and I'll tell you why. She's so pleasant all the time, and when you make a wrong turn, she doesn't ag. And I'm not saying anybody else does, but I'm just saying, sometimes I have a female passenger in my car, and she has a tendency to, nag, anyway, but you get in the car, and the thing I love about it is you type your deal in there, you know, and she's so pleasant, and she says, "You know, in a mile, in a mile turn right." And she's always, "I love her too much. Really I do. I'm in love with the woman that lives in the dash of my car." Anyway, sometimes I just want to pull over and talk to her about other stuff too. Anyway, I'm just telling you. Anyway, so you put the address in there and she talks to you, and so sometimes I've made a wrong turn, or have it turned. And so you're going in, you know, and it dings and says, "Turn here," and you don't turn. And then what happens on the screen is, is you see this little word, recalculating. No nagging, recalculating, and then in a very pleasant tone, no condemnation, in a very pleasant tone in just a little while it says, "Turn right in a quarter of a mile. Turn right in a quarter of a mile." Here's an interesting verse, Romans 8, 28, "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purposes. God works all things together for good, not for everyone. There are a lot of people that all things don't work together for good. There are a lot of people in the world right now that things are bad for them and they'll always be bad, because the Bible says God works all things together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes." And here's what that means, Israel was called by God for a purpose, and as they were leaving to go into captivity, God said to them, recalculating, "I haven't rejected you, I'm not finished with you, I'm recalculating, and I'm going to get you back to the same place to do the same thing, it will just have to be in a different way." And some of us in here, we have made mistakes. The Apostle Paul made mistakes, Peter made mistakes, Mary Magdalene made mistakes, King David made mistakes, and you never see God in the Bible coming to His people and taking their mistakes and throwing those people away and saying, "I revoke the call that is on your life," the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and irrevocable means irrevocable. I'm not taking you out of the game, I'm not taking the giftings away from you. Now you can see people who use their giftings for something other than God. This is my personal opinion, I really do believe that this is a personal opinion. I believe that Elvis Presley was created in his mother's womb to sing gospel songs along with Billy Graham when Billy Graham preached. Can you imagine what would have happened if Elvis would have used his gift for God? And see, he had a fondness for the Lord, but he never served the Lord really. But he had one of the most anointed voices that has ever been created on the earth, and I believe it was created for God. The problem was he never surrendered it to God. I believe that Elton John was created by God to write worship songs. Many people have a gifting and a calling that was there in their mother's womb. And God says, "I will not revoke the gift, and I will not revoke the call." But it only works out together for good when you're called according to my purpose. So you might say, "Well Jimmy, I know that God created me in my mother's womb, and he has a will for my life, but unfortunately I've made a lot of mistakes. Every time you make a mistake, God recalculates a way to get you back." And it's never too late. And you say, "Well, why shouldn't I just keep making mistakes? Because your best life is in God's will, not making mistakes." I made a mistake in marriage early in my life. I made a big mistake. Karen and I were married at 19, didn't know anything about marriage. And I was a dominant, verbally abusive husband, very, very neglectful. And for years I made mistakes in our marriage, and I did not surrender my life to God. But one day I did surrender my life to God after years of mistreating my wife and neglecting her. I repented. It was one night we had had a fight, and I told her, "Get out of here. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of your, you know, your attitude and everything." And Karen went to the bedroom crying, and I just sat in the living room, and I'd read a scripture that morning in John 16, and Jesus says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, He will lead you into all truth." And I sat in the living room that night, and I knew that I was about to lose my wife. And I sat in the living room that night, and I said, "Holy Spirit, teach me how to be a husband. I don't know how to be a husband. I'm about to lose my wife and lose my marriage." And literally at that moment it was like scales fell for my eyes. It was like before I was blind, but then I could see, and I could see what a jerk I had been. And the marriage ministry that we have today was not birthed out of a great marriage. It was birthed out of a failure. It was birthed out of sin on my part. And I continued to do the wrong thing, but when I came and did the right thing, God forgave me, and He worked all things together for good in my life and what the devil meant for evil. He actually turned it around for good. No one should listen to me. No one can minister to a drug addict like someone who's been there. No one can minister to an alcoholic like somebody's been there. No one can minister to a woman thinking about having an abortion or has had one like someone who's been there. No one can minister to a person who's struggling relationship or someone who's gone bankrupt or someone who's been depressed or someone who's been suicidal like someone who's been there. And I'm not saying that you have to be messed up to be used by God, but what I'm saying is this, God will turn your messes and turn them into a ministry. And you sit there with the devil's help because he's always whispering into our souls when we're going through trouble. And you sit there and think, because of all the things that I've done wrong, how could God ever use me? Read your Bible. Everyone in there did wrong stuff. God never chose a perfect person to serve him. And one of the things I like about the Bible is it tells dirt on everybody, I love that. David, Abraham was a liar, David was immoral and a murderer, Peter was a coward, Paul was a legalist and a murderer. The Bible tells the whole story on everyone. Read your Bible. Some of the people who did the greatest stuff did the worst stuff. And God didn't throw him away and God didn't reject him because his gifts and callings are irrevocable. What God did was he came and this is number four, God releases the knowledge of his will and activates us into it as we surrender to him. God doesn't reject us. God doesn't throw us away. This is Jeremiah 29, 13. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. You will find me when you're ready to get serious about this. And I love Proverbs 16-3, commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established. Commit your works to the Lord. Part of the reason that we wander away is because we're not serious about our relationship with God. We're not including God in our lives. And because we're half-hearted in our relationship with God, we begin to wander and we begin to drift and that's when the devil begins to tempt us and we begin to get involved in bad things. And here's what God says to the nation of Israel, they're under judgment, they're going into Babylonian captivity and here's what God says to the nation of Israel. Now when you're ready, I'm ready, but you're going to have to get serious about this thing. When you're ready, I'm ready. In marriage, they've been married for 36 years to a beautiful, wonderful woman. And for years, Karen protested to me because she just simply says my heart was not turned toward her. And she was right, my heart was not turned toward her. And I remember one of the main things that I did that demonstrated that to her was making decisions without her or trying to force her into honoring decisions that she was not a part of. And our marriage was never right until I included her on every decision. And today in our marriage, we don't make any significant decisions without making them together. I come to her, she comes to me, and we sit down and we pray we don't bully each other. We don't manipulate each other. We come and we talk things out and we allow each other to talk until we're in absolute unity. Let's say this, it'll never be right between us and God until He's included in every issue in our lives. And we're not fighting and we're not resisting. But we come to God and we say, Lord, what is Your will for my life? I'll do whatever it is. Now, I want you to listen to me. I'm going to close here. I want you to listen to me because I'm going to say some things that you won't believe. But I hope you'll think about them this week. He loves you more than you love yourself. He'll bless you more than you'll ever bless yourself. Because will for your life is much better than yours. And part of the reason that we struggle with God is because we don't believe that. We believe we love ourselves more. We believe that our will is better and we believe that we'll bless ourselves more. And because we believe that, these are implanted lies that the devil always implants within us early in our lives or wherever we've been or we've had hardship or tragedy, somewhere along the line. He comes in stealth and whispers this lie down into our hearts that says, you're defective. God can't use you anymore and He doesn't love you that much. You're an afterthought. His will for your life is just for you to stay out of the way. Come to church, keep your nose clean, somehow get to heaven and stay out of His way because He's already ticked and He's just about to nuke you. And you've got to admit, you've got to admit sometimes we think those thoughts, right? But here's the truth, you're adorable to God. There's not a way in the world that you can possibly understand how much you love. He loves you way more than you love you. His will for your life will blow you away. He will bless you. When the Bible says here in Jeremiah 29 and 11, I know the thoughts that I have toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, the word is shalom. To us peace means a lack of conflict. Shalom means to be overwhelmingly blessed in every area of your life. When Jews say shalom to each other, it means peace, prosperity, blessing, favor, opportunity, life, protection, I'm speaking every blessing over your life. And God comes to the nation of Israel and says, I know my thoughts towards you, my thoughts towards you are shalom. If you let me have my way in your life, you will live your life in overwhelming abundance and blessing. And I have a plan for you and it has not been revoked. We've made wrong terms, but I've recalculated and I'm not mad. I'm going to bring you back and I'm going to beat the devil and I'm going to get the glory out of it. Anybody believe what I'm saying tonight? I don't want you to bow your heads if you would and I want to minister to a few areas. And I want to begin with the wrong concept of God. The wrong concept of God is just simply a concept of God that is not what the Bible says. And the Bible says that God is loving and gracious and merciful, full of compassion. He's a God of redemption. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God so loved you. Holy Spirit of the name of Jesus, I pray that you would come right now and that you would minister the love of Jesus to us. For many of us God, it's easy for us to believe that you don't love us and it's hard for us to believe that you do. We love you. But I pray this week, Lord, as we go our way, as we wake up and pray, as we think thoughts, that you would heal a distorted image of God in our hearts so that we could truly believe and live like we're loved of God, and that your will for us is better than our will for ourselves. Keep your head bad there for just a minute. I want to minister to condemnation. Some of you feel condemned. When we do wrong things, conviction is of the Holy Spirit. Conviction is sweet, specific, and the Holy Spirit shows us the way out and helps us out. But condemnation is a label. It's a final judgment. And condemnation says God's finished with you and Romans 8 once says there is there for now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation. His gift and calling in your life is irrevocable. He'll never take it away. And in the midst of all your failures and mistakes, every single time you've made a wrong turn. God has recalculated and He's recalculated here tonight. I'm getting a word of knowledge right now about divorce. I want you to keep your head bad there. Even here, you feel as though that you just can't go forward because of a previous marriage situation and the mistakes that you made may have been multiple divorces or adultery or. But the Lord says to you tonight that you're blessed of God, that if you'll surrender your life to Him, He'll make that work together for good and He'll turn that into a ministry. He'll turn it into a testimony, bankruptcy, addiction, crime, failure, repeated failure. In the name of Jesus we come against a spirit of condemnation. In Satan we declare to you tonight that there is no sin in this room that is stronger than the blood of Jesus. And we declare tonight that the blood of Jesus has washed away our sins and as far as the east is from the west, God has removed our sins from us tonight. And we confess our sins. And we ask you to forgive us God. There's one more thing I want to minister to before we leave and it's compromise. It's compromise. We stay on our heels. We stay kind of in the shadows from God and one of the main reasons we do it is because we think He's mad and we just don't really know that He has it all worked out for us. If you understood how much He loves you, you would jump in His lap and never get out. If you knew how much He loves you, that His throne is a throne of grace and mercy, you would never ever be condemned again or compromise yourself again. God says, you'll find me when you seek with me, seek me with your whole heart. God we come tonight and we just admit that we have not been as jealous as we should be in seeking you. The word says that we should love you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and God we just admit that there have been compromised areas of our lives and we recommit ourselves tonight to seek you and to love you and to serve you. God I pray your blessing over these precious people here tonight. I pray that you'd open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing this week that they could not receive. I pray God that you'd give them favor and opportunity. I pray that you'd give them supernatural health and blessing in all of their relationships. I pray God that they would have sweet sleep at night in thoughts of God and that they would wake up in the morning rested and feeling close to you. I pray Father tonight, Your blessing in Jesus name, amen. Good to be with you guys tonight.