First Baptist Church in Amboy,IL Podcast
The Will Of God
8th of we on here, Jeff, I'm going to move that out of the way. Romans chapter number 8, there's something that I really am quite anxious to share with you and God's been working in my life for a number of years and I came across a book that I'm in the third time through right now that I just don't feel the liberty to share yet, but praying that God would do something supernatural, unusual in our church and I desire it more than life itself and we won't get into that this evening, but I would ask you to pray for your pastor and pray for us as God's people. Romans chapter number 8 and we're going to look at two verses tonight, we're going to look at the end of this chapter and I want to talk to you about a subject that to be quite honest with you, it would take much more time than we would have tonight, in fact if we used every Sunday night from now until the end of the year and maybe then some, we still would not have time to talk about all that could be discussed on this subject, but look at if you will at Romans chapter number 8 and verse number 26 through 27, says likewise the Spirit also help us, our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, for the Spirit itself make an intercession with us, for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered, that's a pretty important mistake I made there with us and said for us, it's for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searches the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he make an intercession for the saints according to the will of God, these verses have always intrigued me since early in my Christian life and I'm still not sure if I completely understand all the truth that is given in these two verses, but I think when we put them into context it clarifies some things with the rest of this chapter and I want to talk to you about the last four words in verse number 27, what are those last four words, the will of God, and by the way notice in your Bible, now there's a little study aid here, those four words notice the print is different on some of them, what three words are in italics is what the word would be, the will of according, now those words now and again I hope you're mature enough to understand this, this is not in any way to reflect an attack in the King James Version, I know there's a whole lot of that going on now, but and let's say a lot of ignorance in that area too on both sides, but we won't get into that right now, but when you see those italics words, who can tell me what that means, when you see words in our Bible that are in italics, what does that mean, how would you define that, Bob? To clarify, to help us to understand, they're not necessarily those words would not be found in a course when you go into one language to another and most of us are Americans, so we only know one language, so we wouldn't understand this anyways, I took German class and for a whole year and learned how to count to ten in German, actually I think I can count to a hundred if I really think about it, and I can say I say those romantic words to my wife sometimes, yeah I'll leave it down, that means I love you, then that sound romantic, that's one of those romantic languages isn't it, and but when you go from one language to the other there's a lot of things that are inferred but they're not necessarily there, and that's the meaning, so if it's interesting sometimes when you read verses to take those out and see, again it's within reason, okay, but notice just a last statement, according to God, according to God, I think that actually clarifies some things, according to the will of God we say, and again this subject is much deeper than we could possibly cover in its even more deep than you and I could possibly understand, don't ever think, well I understand what the will of God is all about, it deals with the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, and by the way we're not capable of understanding that either, and fools like the debate over is God's sovereignty, and the best quote and I won't go in that direction right now, but the best quote I ever come up with is by Spurgeon as he defines the sovereignty and the free will of man, but any, I won't go that direction right now, but I do want to gain a little perspective tonight on the will of God, to help us to see some things and see some things that maybe we're not used to seeing because of our culture, because of the day that we live in today, we tend to apply biblical through to our time period, which is that, and of course that's a good thing to do, but we need to be careful with that as well. Father, we pray your blessing upon the word of God, I pray that you would help me to convey what you taught me in this study and the will of God throughout the Bible, and the phrase that's really only clarified in the New Testament, and we pray that you would help us to see some truths tonight that would help us to understand your workings in our lives today, and are too small of an idea of who our God is, and our over magnification of ourselves in this world today, pray that you would bless now in Jesus' name, amen. I'll say, and I just jotted a whole bunch of things down so I don't forget anything, but if I'm going to remember everything, I'm going to have to keep looking at my notes here. So I've heard much teaching and discussion of the will of God in my life, especially when it comes to dealing with young people. What is the will of God? What do you think the will of God is for your life? Now we think that in our minds, and the way it's always been presented to me, and as I was saved when I was 19, are the young man seeking God's direction in my life as a new Christian, the way it's always been presented, and it's still, I see that presented today, we think of God's will as some sort of secret quest or treasure hunt that we're on, and we hope to find it sometime. And it's something down the road that we hope to get to someday, and it's something that has to do with planning for our future, the direction we choose for our life. And I'll say this, we set goals and make plans according to what we determine is the will of God. You follow me? And we do that, and we talk about God's call, and I'm going to say that goals and plans are good, but God often, often, ah, I can call it myself there, some of us say words a little funny, don't we? Of course, I don't. I still say often ought to be pronounced often, not often, okay, oftentimes, no, never mind. We're done chasing that squirrel, okay? And goals are good, and they're often changed, but in fact, I would say most of the time, our goals are changed. How many of you are the adults, and I don't know who we consider an adult here, have, if you're over 40 years old, how many of you are at the place now where you thought you would be as a teenager? Anybody? We set goals, but do we achieve them? In fact, I see this in the Bible in Psalm 37 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, the steps." And James 4 says, "We ought to say if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that." And what about our plans? Now we have many man-made teachings and phrases that become familiar with, and I've used them myself. We've all used them. I've used them in preaching, I've used them in sharing God's truth with people on an individual level. We use phrases like God's perfect will, have you ever heard that one? God's perfect will as opposed to his permissive will. Does that mean we're like a game and he said, wrong move, go back to square, two squares and try it again, God's permissive will. Or God's written will or is revealed will, or maybe his universal will as opposed to his specific will. I've explained this and I've had it explained to me many times, well this is what God's will is for all men and this is what God's specific will is for me. And God's will is not a puzzle, it's not a secret mystery, it's not a riddle that we need to solve, nor is it a path or place that we intend to go. That's not what God's will. That may be our plans, but that's not necessarily when I see, I'm going to show you some things here a little bit. I'm going to just read this and the problem we have in discovering God's will is that our focus is on ourself instead of God. There's the problem with everything in our life. What is God's will for my life? There's our problem right there. We asked the question wrong. When is my life, I've got problems already. What's God's will for my family? When it's my family, we've got problems. When it's my anything, we need a bigger God than ourselves, are you with me? Our problem is our God's too small. And because our God's so small, we want to fit our God in a little box like Boxmania, one of the little boxes, some of us have a little bigger box for God, but we want to keep him confined and okay, God, when I need you, I'm going to pull you out and use you. And we sometimes think of it this way or we ought to think of it this way. Where do I fit into God's will? Where do I fit into God's will? Let him be God and I'll be his servant or his son or his child. Instead of me trying to find out this is my life, what does God want me to do with my life? My life. And I understand this in the book of Romans that my life never didn't belong to me. Before I was saved, it belonged to the devil. Now that I'm saved, it belongs to him. I'm his child. I was a child of the devil. Now I'm a child of God. And where do I fit in his plan? Now think of this, think of the millions of Christian martyrs throughout history. You suppose that they gathered at a youth conference or youth camp and said, I believe God's will for me is to be burned at the stake. What? I believe God's called me to be sought in half. I believe God's called me to be impaled in a stake naked in front of the whole world to die and suffer. Now, were they out of God's will when that happened to them? I don't think they came up and got a filled out of cards and said, bless God, we got another one. We're going to suffer for Jesus. What God's called me to this, God doesn't lead the way we sometimes think he does. And so we say, well, they were volunteered. They felt the call to die for Christ or how many people were born into extreme poverty and died of starvation? Whether they were Christian or non-Christians, well, they should have been saved and God would have taken care of them after all God takes care of his own. Oh, if they were to just believe God, they would have had plenty of food to eat. Who are we to say that they were in God's will or out of God's will? Now, if that happened to us, we'd think, well, I must not be doing something right. You see, our idea of God's will is totally skewed by our mentality, the prosperity gospel, if we don't dare call it that, but that's really what it is. And how many abused and neglected young people in our own community, by the way, our community is full of them, abused and neglected young people that know nothing of the comforts of our world. So they might have some things, but we do surprise how few things they really have, if we get to know them a little bit. They have no security of family that we take for granted. I wonder how many of them say, oh, if I could just find God's will, I'd bid out of this mess. You suppose that maybe God's will for them to be in that mess? Oh, wait a minute. Would God do that? You see, our idea of God is really kind of a strange idea when we put it in an entire context. Now, the way when I think of that, I think, is there anyone that walks close enough to God to care for these that are all around us, to reach out to them, to put our needs and our desires and our possessions and family aside to reach out to them? I find this, and I'm just going on here, the will of God. I just, anytime I study a phrase or word in the Bible, I look it up in the Bible, I find the word, the phrase will of God used 23 times, only in the New Testament. It was recorded, and it was used one time in our reading this week in 1 Peter chapter number 2, verse number 15. I wasn't going to go there, but I may be sidetracked if I do, verse number, I think, about 13 through 17 would be good understanding of that verse, but you find that phrase one time, the will of the Lord is found two times in all of the New Testament. All these things are, it's interesting, they're only seen in the New Testament. That tells us something about it right there, but I'm not sure if we'll get completely to be able to fill in the blanks there. His will is found 11 times, referring to God. His will, of course that phrase is used a number of times throughout the Bible, referring to someone else's will, but in direct reference to God, his will is used 11 times in the Bible according to my account, I'm cross-eyed, so I might not have counted right, all right? And thy will is used seven times, referring to God. And, of course, Jesus' pray not my will, but thine be done, where maybe that's the most familiar phrase that time that that's used, and God is willing, is used two times, and God is not willing, is used one time. We might know what that verse is. God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But never do I find the phrase God's perfect will. Now growing up, and we hear that sometimes, well, that's God's perfect will, this is God's permissive will. And I thought, where's that at in the Bible? The closest I could find was in Romans chapter number 12. You turn there, I want you to see the verse, and if I quote it by memory, you see God's perfect will. But when you read the verse, you find out that's not what it's saying, what I think of it as. In Romans chapter number 12, most of us know those verses. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable in the God, which is your reasonable service. That's a great phrase right there, reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. There it is right there. Did you look at it though? You know it'd be good, and I was listening to a preacher some time ago that said when he learned to memorize verses, the preacher, I think it was a Sunday school teacher that taught him to start memorizing verses and important to memorizing verses, he said when you quote those verses, use the punctuation to help you understand what those verses are saying. Look at verse number two, be not conformed to this world, colon, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, comma, that you may prove what is that good, comma, and acceptable, comma, and perfect, comma, will of God. The will of God is not the same, it's separated from perfect, so it's not the perfect will of God. Now, verse number three, even clarified more, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. Now, that phrase measure of faith, I want to do a study on that, I want to preach a message on that so bad, but we're not going to right now the measure of faith. Now what is the will of God? Look back in Romans chapter number eight, now we're putting this into context here, are you with me tonight? Are you okay? Who is that? Whoa, what's he getting at here, what kind of heresy are we preaching tonight? Yeah, I was just thinking of this, excuse me for getting off sidetracked here, but we got a couple of babies in church, and you know, I'm going to watch this, I don't know if they'll be here Sunday, and I notice when there's a baby, every eye is going to be on that baby, huh? It doesn't matter, I could preach anything when those babies come to church, because they ain't nobody listening anyways. I think I've got a message ready for the green man that lives on the moon. You know, the moon has made a Swiss cheese, and the earth is flat, so he just, you know, Mickey Mouse took a balloon up to the moon, and boy, that could make a good message, and folks say, "Well, that was good, what did you preach?" I know, but I sure saw that cute little baby in church, huh? And I noticed since we've been discussing things, and the preacher gets up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, boy, when your husband, your wife is like, "Wow, they speak the mind of God." But now it's just me peeking, okay, so, but, I don't know why I get sidetracked on that. My brain is kind of fried tonight, so never mind that. Verse number 28, "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Let me say this, and I'm just going to comment as we go through these verses instead of reading all the way through them for right now, "God's will is far beyond my understanding, but I can't trust him." Did you get that? I can't ever understand God's will, but I can trust him. And I'll say that his good is not always what I would choose from my good. His good and my good are not the same thing, we're on a different page. But I find out later on that his good is always best. His purpose is always best, not my purpose, not my plan, but his purpose. For whom he did, now this is where it gets really deeper than a lot of us, we kind of get nervous when we start talking about verses like this, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many brethren. God's will is to form us into his image. Just to be conformed into the image of his son. Now we say sometimes that we're all created in the image of God. Is that true? You've heard me say this enough, I think you know what the answer to that is. We're created in the image of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were created in the likeness and the image of God. But sin changed everything. God's grace has been introduced to us as soon as man fell. And by the way when man fell that's not God's perfect william, bad move, now we've got to go to plan B, now we're going to go to God's permissive will and we're going to come up with plan B and then plan C and on and on. We think that way in our mind, but God's grace is given to create us in the image of his dear son. Wow, I was born in the image of Adam as a sinner, but salvation's made me in the image of God's dear son. God's new creation, sometimes I think I mentioned this maybe Wednesday night, sometimes I wonder what the new heaven and new earth is going to be like. I used to think, in fact until fairly recently I used to think that it's going to be just like God's original creation, or I got news for it, it's going to be better than God's original creation. Because it's not just one man and one woman in the garden anymore, it's all the redeemed. And we're all in the image of God and we all are singing the joy of redemption and God's salvation and God's grace. It's going to be far better and the emphasis in God's creation is not the beauty and the splendor and all the things that we're going to see, but the very person of God that we are now a part of, and according to, he is creating us, he's predestinated us to form us into the image of his dear son like Jesus Christ himself. And let me look at this in verse 29 and 30, moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified. Notice they're all in the past tense. In other words, with God, there's no such thing as time. It's like, well, I got saved this day, and now I'm being formed and God says it's all done. Now, again, I can't understand that. I can't understand the foreknowledge of God and to try to explain it or try to understand it. It's one of those things that one of my professors in college said, if you ever want to go crazy, lock yourself in the closet and try to figure out what the eternal is, if you ever want to go crazy, like I want to go crazy. And one of those things, if you want to go crazy, try to figure that out. Or if you want to argue on Facebook with somebody, figure it out, all right? That'll be a non-ending argument, and it'll be fun, though, won't it? To some people that would, I guess, and God's eternal will. Life is good when we trust in him and rest in him. God is God of all, before anything ever happened God already knew, before I was ever born, God knew me. I think of that song that we heard this morning before I loved him, he loved me, before I didn't know they were going to play that song, but I was thinking of that song, then I saw it on the schedule for an instrumental this morning. God's will is to give us one step at a time to our eternal destination. Look at, and I'm just going to read through the verses here. We won't take much more time here, because I want to give you something before we go. In verse number 31, that's where we stopped, right? What shall we say, then, to these things, if God before us, who can be again, can I ever stop the will of God? Can I ever stop the determination of God's plant? Now, again, try to figure this out, if I just mention it and questions things, or say you're a heretic, or whatever, but he that spared not his own son, but believe it him up for us all. How shall he not with him so freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justified it. Who is he that condemn it, that is Christ that died? Yea, rather, that is risen again. Who is even at the right hand of God who also make an intercession for us? Where is Jesus at right now? Oh, I thought he was in my heart. Now, never mind, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? We cannot be separated from him. Our life is hid with him, shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written for thy sake, we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. It's not about me. It's about him. His will is not about me, it's not my life, it's not my desire, it's not my home, it's not my possessions, everything is his, nay in all these things. We are conquerors, is that what it says? We're more than conquerors, forget about winning the battle, man, we got everything. We're more than conquerors because we're more spirit, no, because we're more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor principles nor angels nor principalities, I need to read it, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor death nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Notice a phrase that I noticed four times in what we read from verse 28 to 39, verse number 28. We know that all things work together for them that love God, do you love God tonight? Do we love God? And then in verse number 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Can we ever be separated from his love? And then in verse number 37, nay in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that what, loved us. The greatest aspect of God in us, now God's greatest attribute is his holiness. Now as far as our greatest, most important attribute to us between us and God is his love for us. And we love him only because he first loved us. In verse number 39, nor height nor death nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. You say this, God's will never changes. We may resist and reject God's will, but his will never changes. And again, this could take a couple of volumes of books to define what I'm trying to say there, but we'll just go on with that. God's will is the journey only known to him. Let me give you a few things here before we close. When Jesus called the disciples that follow me and he calls us and says, "Follow me." You reveal to us one step, remember how God led Abraham, you just follow me, where are we going? It doesn't matter. Just follow me. That's how God's will works. Had the apostles known the road that they were going to travel when they left their fishing nets. Do you think they ever would have left? Had we known where God was going to lead us, you suppose we would have chosen the path that we've chosen, God says, "Just follow me and leave it up to me." And we have followed his path, I don't know about you, but I'm not sure about this, God. But because our focus is on the love of Christ, God, I trust you, I believe you, I love you, I'm going to just follow wherever you leave me. And some folks that say, "Well, that's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear God's will of whom I'm supposed to marry if you're married. That doesn't count. All right? God's will doesn't cover well. Where does He got me to go the rest of my life or where should I go to school?" And most of the time we hear talking about God's will, we're talking to young people, isn't that sad? When it really, all of us ought to be living in God's will. What career should I choose or should I buy like this house? Did you ask for God's will before you bought the house? Oh boy. Watch out. God's showing that will. When you show your vision in the night and you'll be asked for these things, "No, wait a minute." How do we know those things? I remember wrestling with that. Actually before I came here, I was in a long story short, we're going to have a job and somebody I was witnessing to that had to be there when I was working in an office that someone had to be there when I was there on weekends and shut their electricity off and everything. And I started witnessing to them and I mentioned that God's called me to preach. If God called you to preach, I'm talking to a lost man. How do you know God talking? Do you see a vision? Do you see a talking dog talk to you or something? Does a tree start talking to you or try to explain that to somebody? How did God call you? How does all that work? And we say, "Well, I want to know God's will. Should I buy this car? Should I buy this four-wheeler?" No, you shouldn't. "Should I buy this dress?" No, you really shouldn't. I'm sorry, Jacob. I'm having fun with you. And what for dinner? You know, what am I supposed to eat? That's not... Well, let me tell you. Let me just give you some things here to jot down. You're jotting things down, encourage you to do that. And God's will, and this is what I see in the Bible, not what we're used to hearing, not how we're used to talking about God's will. God's will, first, and I mentioned this already, God's will is to transform me into the image of Jesus Christ, to the image of His dear Son. He wants to recreate me into His image. And by the way, am I ever going to get there in this lifetime? No. No, not until I'm in His presence. Oh, what a day that'll be when I see Him face to face. I'm longing for that day. And salvation, the second thing is salvation is where I first step into the will of God. That's the first step. God's not willing to eat and perish, but that also comes to repentance. Salvation is. You say, "Well, I'm not sure what the will of God is." But I tell you what the will of God is to realize that my life is about being formed into His image, not what I desire, what I want, what I think and what I feel. In fact, the closer I get to Him, the less it matters what I feel, what I think, what I desire. But I'm going to be transformed into the image of God, and it started with salvation. Now, that's not the end of it. It's sad in our day today, and this really has been magnified in the last few, last hundred years or so that we think, "Well, they're saved. That's all there is." Well, bless God. They're saved. Hallelujah. Let's write their name down. We got another one written down in glory. And there's much more. That's the first step in God's will. And then I wrote it this way, God's will is for us to recognize who I am, to recognize who I am, who am I? Do we esteem ourselves, or do we accept what God says, "I am"? I've been struggling with this statement this week. We sometimes say, and it says it quite often in some of the songs, and sometimes we give testimony, we say, "Well, I'm just a sinner saved by God's grace, am I? Or am I a saint that still sins? Which one am I?" And where I first read that, they said, "We should quit looking at ourselves as sinners saved by grace, because we are saints that still sinned." Now the reality is, when I look at myself, I see a sinner that's saved by God's grace. But when God looks at me, he sees one of his dear children that's still sinned. So both of the above really are correct in my understanding, not a person that wrote that, would not agree with me on that, but that's just the way I comprehend it. I am a sinner saved by God's grace, that's my perspective of things, that's thank God for his grace. But in God's eyes, and there needs to be a balance here, now we can get off balance in both those directions, I am a saint that still sins, that's God's perspective. And reconciling those two is different, because sometimes we get down, "Oh, I'm just an old sinner, I can't do anything right." No, I'm a child of God, in me is God himself, I have God in me. And I am a saved one, I am his child, I belong to the king, didn't we sing that one tonight? I belong to the king. And then thirdly, God's will, first of all, is to transform into the image of Jesus Christ, salvation is where I step into the will of God, and as I grow in the Lord I recognize who I am, and then when I recognize who I am, I begin to recognize who God is. He is the Lord, L, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, he is the Lord, the Jehovah God. Now theologically, we understand that, but in a practical sense, God's in control, God's in control of everything, yup, that's walking in his will. If he chooses from me to lose my life tomorrow, that's his will, that's up to him. I am in him and he is in me. What an amazing thought that is. You know, sometimes we put those things in our minds, they register, yeah, I know the Bible teaches that, I know the preacher said that, I know it talks about that in songs, but what does that mean? I am in him and he is in me. I think years ago there was a popular song, it's made date me if I start singing the song, some of you might recognize it, but I'm not going to sing the song. It's a beautiful song, but it's just not theologically correct. And the song was titled More of You. I've had all that I need, but what I need is a beautiful song. I remember somebody singing that in my whole church, I could the music director singing it in my church as a young Christian and pastor got up and after he sang it and said, you know what, that's a beautiful song, but that's not right. We shouldn't be asking for more of God, we have all of God that we can ever get. It's not more of him, he wants more of us, but we have all of him. We have the fullness of God living in us, he is, we can't get any more of him. I have all of him, but the question is, does he have all of me? There's recognize who God is. I think of this, and again, this is far deeper than we can imagine. His will was working in me long before I knew him, long before I knew who he was, long before I heard the plan of something, I look back over my life and think God was preparing me for where I am right now. That's an amazing thing. Before I ever knew him, I had no need for, no understanding, no need for salvation. My mind had no need for salvation, but I certainly didn't need salvation. I had religion, but God knew, and God brought me to this place and specifically to this ministry, to this church, to the background, to the upbringing that I went through and preparing me and my personality and my experience and my family and all those things God knew me long before I knew him. Now where I find God's will begins, well, God's will is to transform me into the image of Christ, salvation is where I step into God's will, and as I grow into Lord I recognize who I am, and I recognize who he is, and the omnipotence of God. And then, to understand God's will, I've got to develop a Bible desire, a hunger, and a thirst for God. What an amazing book we have. You ever hear the statement, "You are what you," what? You are what you eat, right? You are what you eat, Isaiah says, the words of Ham and I didn't eat them up, and Job says I desired the words that I'm out more than my necessary food, but there's nothing more important than this book. And if I ever get to where something's more important, I just don't have time for the Bible, we'll never understand where God's will is. Now, God will lead us to places out of His grace and His mercy, but God's desire is for me to have an intimate relation. This is God's revelation, God's revealing Himself to me. God wants me to know Him. God wants to talk to me, like He talked to Adam and Eve in the garden. Of course, we don't see Him face to face like they did before their sin, but when He came and spoke to them and we have this book where God speaks to us, and it's sad that we as Christians think that we've got so many things to do, we don't have time to read, to study, to memorize, to meditate on the Word of God. We're missing out on so much. God's desire for us is to have a relationship with Him that will only get better as we develop that walk with Him to the Word of God, and then when prayer becomes real, that's God's will for our life. God's will is not, well, what am I going to be doing 10 years from now? God's will for me today is to get into that book and let that book transform my life. Not just read it, not just learn the facts about that book, not just listening to preachers about that book, not just reading books about the book, but reading the book and memorizing it, meditating it, letting it form our way of thinking, transform our mind, and let it change us from the inside out, and some folks pride themselves. I read the Bible through 20 times this year. We'll praise the Lord. Here's a cookie. We'll give you a badge or something, but what did it do for your life? Did it transform anything in your life? Are you thinking different than you were before? Has God taught you to love? Has God taught you to forgive? Has God taught you to move on beyond your petty problems and trust him and believe in him? And then when prayer becomes real, that's God's will. He wants an intimate, close relationship with me, my greatest desire, and my heart is to draw closer to him and prayer, and all we ought to constantly. And if that's our desire, if we're walking in his will, we're going to be with him all the time. We're going to be talking to him all the time. Sometimes folks will think we're talking to ourselves, you ever go down the shore and people have got those little headphones and they're talking to them and walking, "Hello? What?" Well, they're talking to somebody else. I don't know. I don't understand how that works. I don't want to get one of those things, because I don't want to be one of those fools that walks through the shore, "What?" But that's how we ought to be for God, and sometimes I catch myself talking to God and "Who are you talking to? You got a Bluetooth? No, I'm just talking to Jesus." So we're going to be talking to Him, we're going to converse with Him. And do I realize when I pray who I'm talking to? You've ever been one of those first things I used to be this way, and I understand when people are this way, "Well, I just don't like to pray in public. I get nervous." You know what we ought to be? If we knew who God was, we'd be nervous talking to Him in private as well as in public. And if we were really talking to Him, it wouldn't matter who's listening in. It's not talking to other people, and I get nervous when I'm front of people, but I don't get nervous when I pray, because I'm talking to God and not the other people. But because we have such a skewed view of God, and we think that it's all about us instead of we're on Him, we ought to always pray. And we always ought to be in conversation with Him. The thing that God desires and the thing that He wills for every one of us is always being touched with Him. Not just, "Oh, yeah, He's on the line. I can pick up the line and talk to Him anytime." No, I'm talking to Him all the time. He's listening to everything that I say. I don't have Him on hold. I don't have Him on speed dial. I'm talking to Him all the time, and He's talking to me when I'm meditating on the word of God. It's a two-way conversation, and that's what it means to, and the last thing I have written down here, I don't have these numbers. I just jotted a bunch of things down and put asterisks next to them. I don't know if you've got the same ones that I do. God's will is to transform me into the image of Christ's salvation is where I step into God's will, and to recognize who I am is a part of God's will, and recognize who God is. And if I recognize who I am, boy, that caused me to fall in my face before God, and to have a desire and hunger and a thirst and a love for the word of God. There's nothing I desire more than the word of God, and there's nothing that means is more meaningful to me than my time and prayer. That's God's will. God wants us to have that intimate time with Him, and it's all summed up in abiding in Christ. John 15 talks about abiding in Christ, to me is to live in His presence. John 15 is one of the first chapters I memorized. I don't think I'd quote the whole thing, but if you abide in me and I in you, or I in the vine, you're the branches he that abide in me and I, and him the same, bringing forth much truth. I didn't look at it before in preparing for this, maybe I should have read through it once. I in the vine, you're the branches he that abide in me and I, and him the same, bringing forth much fruit, but without me, you can do nothing. I'm divine. Here are the branches. God wants us to abide in Him, to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, to hear His voice when He speaks. We're in constant state of prayer and we're in constant communion and living in His presence. We will hear Him speak, not audibly, "Hey, dummy, sit up straight." No, He's not going to talk to us, but He does call me dummy, but He might not call you dummy. Most people call me dummy, as a matter of fact, I don't know what it is about that. I think that's my middle name. And God speaks, as God directs us, "Hey, there's somebody," and you ever been in that situation, I'm sure you have, a couple of times this week, and I'm learning, finally learning to not only hear the voice of God, to obey the voice of God. I wish I could say I always did that. I missed one opportunity this week. I did it a few times, but one opportunity, I missed to pray with somebody. I've learned to take advantage of those times, when folks open up to you, that's the time to pray with them. That's time to share Scripture with them. Now you're probably more spiritual than me. You probably see all those times. But I miss them sometimes. And the reason we miss them is because we're not in the will of God. Well, wait a minute. I'm preaching. I'm the pastor. Isn't that the will of God? Well, I'm involved in this ministry. I'm involved in doing this, and I'm reading, aren't I in the will of God? But if I'm not abiding in Him and in tune with Him all of the time—and by the way, the will of God is something we get in and out of—it's not a one-time thing. And let me share a verse of Scripture with you, and I want to get here before we close, okay? I want to say this, that faithfulness will come when we experience God's grace. It's not a one-time thing as our salvation was. You know, when I started trying to understand what the fullness of the Holy Spirit is, just a simple-minded kid that could hardly read, I just started reading the book of Acts. I realized that people in the Bible were saved one time. But over and over again, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, stepping into God's presence is not a one-time thing. We think, well, I've taken care of that, oh, have we? I've not taken care of it. Well, I may have once, but I need to take care of it again. And being filled with the Holy Spirit is not doing things, it's being. It's not doing—just like salvation is not doing certain things, it's being the child of God, it's trusting in Him in His direction. I want you to turn quickly to Ephesians 5, one of the places where we see the word the phrase will of God, Ephesians 5 and verse 15 through 21, Ephesians 5 verse 15. So then walk circumspectly, not at school, you find it in your Bible. I used to say—I used to like when Prince would say, I hear the pages turning, well, I don't hear anymore. And a lot of people are using their phones for the Bibles, I don't know. I don't hear them. They turn bare. Maybe it goes, ding, ding when you turn, I don't know, but I don't hear it anyways. But see that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil, wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what's that phrase? Will of the Lord is. Know what the will of the Lord is. Now, that you're a child of God, now that you're saved in verse number 18, and be not drunk with wine, by the way, that's not saying in any respect, in any honest student of the reader of the Bible would tell you, that's not saying it's okay to drink a little bit of alcohol. That's used by a lot of dishonest people today, be not drunk with wine, wear and success, but be filled with the Spirit. You know, there's a comparison made here to someone who's drunk with wine. Someone who's drunk with wine, I've never been that way, some of you maybe have, I think Todd was just last week, but no, that was Rex, I'm sorry, I got the brothers mixed up. And when you're drunk with wine, you're controlled by something outside of yourself. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're controlled by something outside of yourself. When somebody's drunk with wine, chances are they're going to sober up eventually. I've seen people that are drunk with anger, and I just kind of let them speak for a while, then we'll talk to you tomorrow when you're sober up a little bit. We're drunk with a lot of things, but, and when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, it's like into that. In other words, I may be filled with the Holy Spirit today, but it doesn't necessarily mean I am tomorrow. I need to drink at the fountain of life again tomorrow. I need to get into the Word of God again tomorrow. In fact, I'm told by people that are much smarter than me, that that verse says in verse number 18, if you were to translate it literally in the way that the Greek language is a B.E. B.E. being filled. In other words, it's a continual thing. It's not a one-time thing, like our salvation, every day, every moment, we need to be seeking the fullness of the Holy Spirit abiding in Christ, walking with Him in prayer, letting His Word transform the way we think, the way we see people. In verse number 20, is that where I stop, no, I stop, in verse number 19, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual Psalms, singing and making melody in your heart unto the Lord. Well, I'm just not a cheerful person. When you walk with the Lord, you'll become a cheerful person. It's amazing how that works. In verse number 20, giving thanks always, well, I'm just not a thankful person when you walk with Jesus. You'll become a thankful person, giving thanks always for all things. All things. Well, what about this terrible thing that happened to me? Do we give thanks for that? What did you give thanks for? All things. Praise the Lord. I'm dying of cancer. What? Praise the Lord. I just lost the luck. Give thanks for all things. I know that. I say that kind of facetiously because do we do that? But doesn't God say we will? Give thanks to all things? Give me thanks for all things. Unto God the Father and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another and the fear of God. You see the will of God is something that we're converted. Of course, we're saved one time. We enter into the perfect will of God. God's perfect. God's will is always perfect. There's no such thing as God's perfect and imperfect will. God's desire is always perfect. And God understand, and again, I can't understand that alone, define it, or even try to. But God desires us to walk with Him today. The will of God is not something down the road. Well, I hope when I grow up, I'll be in the will of God. I hope that tomorrow I'll be in the will of God. Am I in the will of God today? Did God speak to me today in the word of God? The truth is there's a time in our lives and there's multiple times in our lives when we're converted. It's hard to pinpoint that exact time in many people. There might be a major turning point in our life, but still it's not a one time thing. Remember when Peter denied the Lord and Peter, of course, he was saved earlier because he gave that wonderful confession, "Thou art the crisis son of God and Jesus said flesh and blood is not revealed by my Father in heaven." And God spoke to Peter in many very intimate and close ways. But then Jesus told Peter, "Peter, you're going to deny me." And he said this, "When thou art converted?" Well, I thought he already was converted. Yeah, he was, probably a number of times. But the truth is we all need a conversion every day. We all need to submit to him every day. Well, I thought he took care of that. Son of the will of God, we took care of that. It's like disciplining your children. Right, Jack? He's looking at me. I like to use him because he's all boy, isn't he? I like it when boys are all boy and they get into trouble and you think, "Well, I dealt with that. We'll never have to deal with that again." I'd say, "I give you five minutes, but with him I give you one minute." Right? Mom and Dad? Yeah. That's about the way. And that's the way every one of us are. Well, we think why took care of that already? You're going to have to take care of it again tomorrow. You're going to have to take care of it a couple of times yet today when thou art converted. And then Jesus even said the words of Peter later, and I talked about this when we introduction of Peter, that Peter, there's a time when you went where you wanted to go. There's a time when you did what you wanted to do. But when you're old, you're going to be led by somebody else. And he talked about the death he was going to die, but he talked about his maturity and maturity is dying to ourselves and growing in the Lord. And Peter is somebody that we see it, and probably because his personality is so flamboyant, we saw him, you know, he's up and down. And Paul, I look at him, you know, it was, Peter was converted on the day of Pentecost. Well, that was a high point in his life, but he still struggled with sin. Was Peter sinlessly perfect the rest of his life? No. He still struggled with things. He still had some prejudice that God had to deal with him later on in the book of Acts. He still was spoke before he thought. And we look at the apostle Paul. From the moment he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he said, Lord, what will thou have me to do? Seems like he was fully surrendered right at the beginning, wasn't it? What a glorious victory that he's got, victory instantly. But then Paul writes Romans chapter number seven, the things that I would do, I don't do, the things that I don't want to do, you see, we all struggle with that. We all struggle with surrender to God, don't ever think, well, I've got to that place. I've reached that level, we'll never reach that level. We'll never be conformed to the image of Christ until we see Him face to face. If Paul still struggle with sin, if Peter still struggle with sin, I have a pretty good feeling I'm going to still struggle with sin. And yes, I know I'm saved. I know God's in control, but I'm still going to be struggling. I think of somebody told me they were visiting a church one time. I want it good to see those kids up here today. They were visiting church, they dropped their kids off in Sunday school and they weren't sure about this church. And they heard the Sunday school teacher, you know, a lady that was 175 years old teaching junior age kids and she made this statement and they said they heard it when they're coming down the hall and they weren't sure if they heard it, right? But they heard it again, read as they got to the kids of the door. They said, "Well kids, I want you to know God loves you, but I'm really struggling right now." And the kids were bouncing off the wall. I think I heard Janelle say that, but no, I'm just kidding, little kid, "God loves you, but I'm," and they got close to the door, they said, "God loves you." And they heard the kids bouncing and tell them things around, "But I'm really struggling right now." They said, "You know what, kids? I think you're going to come to the big church with me today." And God loves us and sometimes we struggle, don't we? And it's not our struggle with other people, it's our struggle with God. And walking in the wood, trusting Him, knowing Him, being conformed, and we face difficulties, we face trials, we face heartaches, we face impossible situations because God is conforming us into His image. He's transforming us. So we would start looking at Him instead of looking at ourselves and figuring things out on our own, all to walk in the will of God. And I think sometimes we use some of these terms without really even thinking through what they're saying. God's will is for me to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I ain't even close there yet. And we've got a long ways to go. In fact, the more I realize that, the more I see we need each other. It's not, "Boy, you're more spiritual than me. Oh, you got this figured out, I don't have it figured out." And the ones that think they have it figured out, they have a whole lot more mess to deal with than they would ever realize because they don't know what it is to see themselves for who they are and to see God for who He is. And oh, let's learn to walk in it. We need to walk in the will of God together, leading each other, and that leads me to something that I want to share with you next week, Lord willing, pray, you've got to give me grace and understanding and the courage to say what I believe God wants me to say and oh, if we could realize God's will for us, God's will for us as a church is to be a body of believers. And I know some people, their motto is, "My left hand doesn't know what my right hand does." That's not talking about a church. We have to understand each other, we have to love each other and be honest and real with each other. I'm going to ask you to...