Introduction
If you
were here last week you as the apostle Peter in Acts 10 do something totally
scandalous. First of all, he went into the home of some non-Jews, and then he
told a whole room full of non-Jews about Jesus, and then, get this, when
everyone in the room believed in Jesus, he baptized every one of them, said
welcome to the church, and then spent the weekend there. News of this, bender,
this Rumspringa, spreads like wildfire to the conservative Jews down near
Jerusalem. When he gets back to Jerusalem, he’s got some explaining to do.
The
apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had
received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised
believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised
men and ate with them.”
But then
he goes on to explain why everything he did was exactly what God wanted; why he
is fully convinced of that. And that is what we have in Acts 11, we have Peter
recounting why he thinks what happened in Acts 10 was right in line with the
will of God. This is one of the unique things about Christianity. We have a God
who has a will. It’s kind of unique when it comes to world religions, and yet
we see all throughout the pages of scripture that there are certain things that
God wants to happen. Further, His will is not something He is trying to hide
from us. There are things He doesn’t reveal, but there is a lot that He does.
He reveals his will to humans, and He doesn’t just have a general will, things
He’d like to see happen, things He’s doing, but He also has a will for you, and
how you can be involved in what He is doing in this rescue plan to save
humanity to save the world from sin and death. He doesn’t force His will on us
either. He gives you a choice, a choice as to whether you want to follow His
will or to reject His will, or just to ignore it which is really the same as
rejecting. This is interesting because this is relevant for us. I’d be willing
to bet that there are people here in this room who are wrestling with what is
God’s will in one or multiple areas of their life, maybe some pretty important
areas. Maybe some of us have it all figured out, and if that’s the case then
congratulations, but I bet you there are a lot people here who are trying to
sense and discern God’s will. You should pay attention, because we are going to
read through Acts 11, we are going to read through relatively quickly. We are
going to point out various things that Peter points to that lead him to believe
that he was following God’s will the whole way. We are going to see multiple
signposts converging into a clear picture. After, we are going to talk some
about how this is relevant for our lives.
Signposts
for Discerning God’s Will
Starting
from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: “I was in the city of
Joppa praying,
That’s a
pretty good starting point if you want to know the will of God, prayer. This is
where we stop and listen to what God might be saying, we ask God questions
about his will for our lives. God wants a relationship. Psalm 62:1 says, “My
soul waits in silence for God.” This is where we quiet down, where we listen to
God, to ask him questions, we allow God to guide our questions, we talk to God
about recent developments in the area where we are seeing His will. Sometimes
it can take months or years to really get clarity on His will. What he wants
you to do is to stay tuned in, to watch, to talk with him about the things you
see unfolding. He wants to teach you some things as he unfolds His will for
your life, He wants to teach you wisdom. And that is what Peter is doing, He’s
looking for a chance, he ducks up to the roof top to pray. Peter says,
and in
a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let
down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was.
We talked
about all this last week, but notice the parts that he is recounting, he says
that he saw a vision. This is another way God reveals his will, visions and
dreams. Remember what Peter said in Acts 2? The prophet Joel predicted that in
these latter days when God’s Spirit is alive in a new way through his church,
he says, ‘your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.’
This is a pretty direct, obvious and blatant way that God sometimes speaks to
his people. You do see this in scripture, it’s pretty unusual. It doesn’t seem
to happen that often. It seems like times when it’s really important, maybe
someone’s life is on the line or time is of the essence, or God is doing
something really big, God will deliver a vision. Even sometimes these visions,
they can be kind of hard to interpret. It’s hard to know what they mean. I
would say that if you get one of these, well, that’s pretty cool. You should
pay attention to that. Peter says,
I
looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles
and birds. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ “I
replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my
mouth.’
He is
recounting his reluctance to get on board with the vision that he got.
“The
voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God
has made clean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to
heaven again.
He
recorded the rebuke he got from the Lord. Then he says,
“Right
then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house
where I was staying.
We see
another way that God is revealing His will to Peter. He is doing it through
prayer, he is doing it through a vision, and then, we see this diving
appointment. This is where God takes person A and person B and he gets them to
cross paths right at the same time. Some people might feel like this is a
coincidence that these people happen to show up at the same time, but the
spiritually sensitive person might look a little deeper and say, ‘God is doing
something here.’ Then he says,
The
Spirit told me
to have no hesitation about going with them.
This is a
little different from that vision that he got. This is what we will call inner
spiritual prompting. It’s maybe a voice that Peter heard, but I know when I get
these it is more like an impression, it’s almost like God is writing thoughts
to my brain and I know that they are not from me, I know they are coming from
Him. As we mature in the Lord, we learn to recognize these, we learn to listen
to these, we come to rely on these, we look for the ‘still small voice’ of the
Holy Spirit and He will guide us in various ways in our lives. Again, I’m going
to point out that none of these are definitive in and of themselves. We can be
deceived pretty easily. We can miss God’s signs that he is sending to us. We
are stubborn and we see what we want to see, and yet this can be a powerful way
of knowing God’s will. Peter says,
These
six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.
He brought
six guys with him, and they had come back to Jerusalem to verify his story.
[This
man Cornelius] told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and
say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message
through which you and all your household will be saved.’
We see
another point here. Peter got a vision that some guys were going to send for
him. Meanwhile, Cornelius got an angel that gave him some instructions as well.
We saw this with Paul and Ananias in Acts 9 as well. This is what we call
correlated leading. Two people, two Christians (although Cornelius doesn’t seem
to be a Christian yet), will be thinking something, they both will be coming to
the same conclusions, they will go to talk about it, and they have been having
the same thoughts. You see this happening on home church leadership teams, for
example. When a couple of different leaders will key in on one issue all at the
same time, or a few different people will feel led to do something. They will
all start talking about it and they will realize God has been speaking to each
one of them about this. You’ll even find that each person has different
relevant information to pull off the move that God is call them to make. So, we
see God leading Cornelius, leading Peter and they are meeting in the middle at
Cornelius’s house. Peter preached his sermon,
“As I
began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them as he had on us at the
beginning.
Remember
what happened in Acts 2? The Holy Spirit fell on all the Jewish believers? This
happens for the Gentiles as well. We see pretty obvious spiritual fruit being
borne. We see God’s Spirit getting behind this move that Peter made. If this is
not something we should be going along with, then why did God give them the
Holy Spirit? This is something where you look at a move or something you are
doing and if you see God’s Spirit is behind this, actual objective fruit seems
to be borne here, I would keep trying to do more of that, I would take that as
a sign that this is from the Lord. Now it is possible that there could be
pseudo-fruit, something that looks like it’s from the Lord, but it fades away.
That’s why it might be helpful to get some opinions of other mature believers,
but it’s not every day that got puts his Spirit behind something, and when He
does, I would be reluctant to mess with that. I would keep trying to get more
and more behind what he is doing. In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix
it. Peter says, ‘I really think God was in this because of the immediate and
obvious spiritual fruit that it bore. God was affirming this.’
Then I
remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will
be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’
What is he
doing here? He is quoting the words of Jesus that he told the apostles. Peter
was there for his statement. We weren’t there for the words of Jesus, but what
we do have today is scripture. Any leading God gives us is going to be totally
consistent with His scripture. The person that really wants to know the will of
God is going to look to the scriptures for principles and direct statements. If
I am trying to discern God’s will in an area, my mind is indexing through the
scriptures that I know, trying to think about which scriptures might be
relevant. I am going to other mature believers who know the scripture, asking
them what they think is relevant in this situation, trying to evaluate if this
is from the Lord or not. In fact, there are some areas where we don’t even need
to ask for guidance from God, we don’t need a vision because God has already
spoken clearly in his word.
The
believer might be like “Oh Lord, send me a sign, should I spend time everyday
getting into your word? Lord, I need a vision!” And God said, I already sent
you a sign, it’s called 1 Peter 2:2, what do you think I mean by that?”
We say,
“Oh Lord! Should I steal?” And God says, “Thou shalt not steal.”
“Oh God,
I’m so depressed, I don’t know what to do, I need a sign, a voice from the
heavens!” God says, “Why don’t you look at Acts 20:35? Where it says that ‘it
is better to give than to receive.’ Are you trying to give? Or are you taking?
Are you thinking that the more you take the better you’ll feel? I said, ‘love
one another and your joy will be complete.’ You wonder why you’re depressed,
why don’t you try practicing a lifestyle of love, like Jesus lived, like he
called on us to live, you might be surprised how that affects your life,
affects your emotional life.
There are
certain areas where God gives clear guidance. But there are other areas where
it’s not as clear, there are more complex decisions. Peter says that what
happened here was right in line with scripture. Later, when they are debating
this issue, they quote more scripture from the Old Testament. They start to
piece together how this was God’s plan all along, to go to the Gentiles. Peter
says,
So if
God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
That’s a
good question. God has a way he wants to go, and Peter says, ‘we can either get
on board of it, or we can get in the way of it.’ He says he would rather get on
board with it. Finally,
When
they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying,
“So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
On top of
all the points that Peter has already made, we see an additional one added onto
here. And that is, counsel from other Christians. He lays out the details of
what happened to this group of believers in Jerusalem. I don’t know who was
there, I don’t know how mature they were, it does mention the apostles being
present there back in verse 1 as those who heard about what happened. There
were probably some mature believers here, it’s hard to tell how mature the
circumcision party was, we’ll see more from them later. He lays the facts out
and he says, ‘what do you guys think,’ and they’re like, ‘wow, this actually
looks like the real deal.’ Seeking counseling from other Christians, relying on
the witness of the body of Christ, the Christian community can be another
important way that we can discern God’s will. Mature Christians is the key
here, some people know exactly how to go to the person who is just going to
agree with them. Peter didn’t seek input just from the Gentile Christians on
what they thought about this move, he went to the ones who were the most likely
to offer a different perspective and they still said that it looked pretty
good.
God
Will Relates Primarily to His Rescue Plan
We see a
number of different factors here, all converging, and I just want to make a few
observations here and talk about how this applies to our lives. One thing that
I notice as I look over this chapter is that God doesn’t weigh in on every
decision in our lives. There were tons of decisions that Peter made that God
didn’t really have anything to say about. He got no vision from the heavens as
to what color tunic he should wear that day. He had no input from the Lord on
how to go from Joppa up to Caesarea, by boat or by land. God didn’t really
care. There are certain things that God seems to care about. Every day, we make
thousands of decisions. A lot of them are pretty automatic. If you think about
it, every day you are making decisions about what you are going to do, where
you are going to be. For a lot of those, God gives us complete freedom. These
are non-moral decisions, what color sock, what to eat, things like that. But,
God does have a lot more to say about things in our lives related to this
rescue plan that he is carrying out for humanity and the mission that he has
given us to be a part of that. This rescue plan is why he sent Jesus, his one
and only son to earth. To live the perfect life and to die for our sins, and as
a result, it says in Ephesians,
Ephesians
2:8--God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit
for this; it is a gift from God.
Counter to
all of religious, all of man-made religion which says you do, and then you get
blessed for it, this is the opposite, you just put your trust in Christ because
you can’t do. You can’t do it! He did it though. You can’t take credit for
anything. Religion is always prone to boasting, to pride, and he says, ‘you
can’t take credit for anything,’ it is a gift God gives you when you put your
trust in Jesus. That is an offer he makes available to you tonight. Put your
trust in Jesus Christ and receive forgiveness of sins as a gift that you can’t
take credit for. Trusting him. This was the message they were supposed to go to
the Gentiles with, that he had to get the crowbar out and pry them out of
Jerusalem, to go to the Gentiles and the Samaritans as well. If you are a Christian,
this is God’s will for your life, telling people about him. If you are non a
Christian, his will for you is to receive Christ before you think about
anything else related to God’s will. But look what he says then,
Ephesians
2:10--For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ
Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
God has
good things planned for you to do related to this rescue plan. Of course,
before you are going to even think about doing those good things, you need to
be created anew first. But after that point, God’s will is for you to serve him
by carrying his love to other people. That should be the all-consuming passion
in your life. We saw that from Saul a couple of weeks ago, we see that from
these early Christians. There are certain decisions in our life that are more
directly related to our ability to carry about this plan. When we get to the
end of our lives, our lives are very short, you are going to be there before
you know if, you are going to be standing before God after your death and he is
going to ask, ‘what did you do with what I entrusted to you? How did you live for
eternity, not for the world that was perishing, but how did you lay up
treasures in heaven? (In the words of Jesus). God is going to evaluate you
based on that, so that is the most important thing in our lives.
Our
Role in Seeking God’s Will
What is interesting
too, even though we see God chasing down Peter and God initiates in your life,
God gives us a role to play as well in seeking his will. Jesus says, ‘whoever
seeks will find,’ but one thing that I see in Peter is that it really seems
like he was predisposed to follow the will of God. You see this affirmation
from Peter numerous times in the gospels, he’s like, ‘I’ll do anything, I’ll
follow you anywhere, where else am I to go?’ Of course, he says those things,
his actions later become apparent that he wasn’t completely sold out. But if
you go to God and you go looking for his will but you’ve already decided ahead
of time that you’re not going to follow him, or you’re deciding, ‘well, let’s
see what it is first and then I’ll decide if I’m going to follow.’ God is just
not that interested in that kind of conversation. I don’t know if you’ve ever
had a conversation with somebody where they seek you out and you spend awhile
talking about what they should do in a situation and you get to the end of the conversation
and you realize that they already had their mind made up the whole time, it
doesn’t matter what I say. What a waste of time, I never would have had that
conversation if I would have known. Well, God is a little different from us, he
can see people’s hearts, he can see if they have determined ahead of time, so
he just avoids that talk all together. Some people who are having a hard time
seeing the will of God, maybe it is because you have not determined ahead of
time that you are going to follow him.
Honestly,
this is something that we can pray for. We see Peter stop to pray, stopping to
listen, that is when God showed up and started speaking, it’s almost like God
was like, ‘I was waiting for you to shut up, I was waiting for you to stop so I
could start talking, I was waiting for you to sit and listen to me.’ That is
what God is saying for some of us. It’s like he is sitting there on the couch
and we are just zipping into the room and he can’t get a work in edgewise. He’s
like, “I’ll wait until you want to sit down and talk to me.” One thing we can
do during these prayer times is we can do what Jesus did in the garden of
gethsemane where he said, “Father, not my will, but yours be done.” He was kind
of steeling his will before God and working himself over to a place of
willingness. A lot of times, we think we can’t see the will of God but the
truth is, if we spent less time praying, ‘what am I supposed to do?’ and more
time saying, ‘God, I want to commit to follow your will no matter what, not my
will, but yours be done.’ What you might find is you already know what you need
to do, you just haven’t wanted to do it. I have found that in my life, time and
time again.
Another
thing I see from Peter is that he took action as God revealed each step. Remember
how this whole thing started? He went up to Lydda to do some ministry there and
that was going pretty good, God was affirming that. Then he got a message from
a little further out, he goes out there, God works through him there, a lot of
spiritual activity is happening. And then, God’s like, ‘I want you to go up
there next, to Caesarea.’ HE goes, and it isn’t until he gets there that he
sees what God wants from him. Following God is that way, it feels like we are
in a fog and you’ve got a lamp, and you can maybe see right in front of you,
but you can’t see what lies beyond in the fog, it can be pretty frustrating
actually, especially when the fog sits there for year. There are sometimes when
you can’t even see to take a step and you’ve got to just wait there, and that’s
rough, I’ve been there, I kind of am there right now in several things in my
life. God says, ‘look, just take the next step when I show you.’ It’s as we
take these steps that God moves us along into his will. It’s an act of trust. There
are sometimes where, honestly, if God showed us, if he lifted the fog, and
showed us what was sitting 100 steps away, we would freak out, we would be so
terrified, but part of it is that along the way he draws us close to him as we
sit in the confusion. Peter has predetermined to follow, he is stopping to
pray, but he is taking action as God reveals the next step in the plan. He is
moving, God will steer a moving ship, he won’t start steering the boat until it
gets off the dock. Some of us are just too scared to act. You need to step out
and at least take the step that you know, even if it is a step to further
investigate, you need to do it.
Ways
that God Speaks
Another
thing you see in this passage is all of the different ways that God speaks. We
saw a lot of different variety in how God was speaking to Peter. I think it
kind of funnels down into several questions we can ask ourselves if we’re
wanting to figure out God’s will for our lives.
Has God
spoken directly? We saw God doing that in a number of different ways, one way
God does that, like we said, is through scripture. Maybe we need to learn the
word, maybe we need to talk to somebody else who might know some scriptures
that are relevant to the situation that we are facing. Sometimes the way God
speaks through scripture is that you show up for CT and the topic so happened
to be one that you really needed to hear, and God speaks to you through his
word in that way. It is not just a coincidence; God is active in your life.
Sometimes
God will speak through prayer. Some of us, maybe we need to get more serious
about carving out time for prayer in our daily schedules. I think the earlier
in the day you can put this in, the better, because other things will be likely
to crowd this out. I know it’s not possible for some of us. Spend time in
prayer and sometimes through prayer God might speak through these inner
promptings, maybe you’re one of the one that is going to get some sort of a
vision or a dream. I haven’t had too many of those in my life, I’m still not
even sure it was. Prayer is where we stop, and we listen to God. We need to do
that.
Also,
sometimes God might directly speak through circumstances that he is arranging.
Maybe it’s through that correlated leading where you and a friend were both
having the same thought, that might be a sign from God that maybe he is leading
in the same direction. Maybe there are divine appointments that God is
arranging. I remember my first day of grad school, first year. I am praying,
God I pray that I could meet someone in one of these classes who is spiritually
interested. I go and there is an empty seat next to this guy, I plop down, I
strike up a conversation with him, I start trying to talk to him and I am just
getting deadpan, okay. I was computer science, so that’s kind of the norm,
alright? Not a real social bunch. The next day, the same seat is open, but I
look and there is another seat open next to another guy, I plop down there,
strike up a conversation, we end up becoming really good friends. He was a
Christian that was not walking with God, he joins our home church, become a
worker, his wife moves here, they’re married now, they have been serving God
now for many years in this church. It was not a coincidence that I ran into
that guy. Next year, first day of grad school, I go out to the student
involvement fair, we set up a little booth, I try to talk to people and don’t
really get anywhere. I am asking God if there is any one there who is
interesting in spiritual things. We got one contact information; somebody was
interested in coming to home church. She comes to home church; it looks like
she is having a horrible time the whole time. We are driving her home, me and
my future wife, we were just friends at the time though. We are driving her
home and she’s like, ‘that was amazing.’ She has never stopped coming since.
She has brought several people who became Christians, they brought several
people, she is a home church leader who has planted multiple groups in high
school and college. I had no way of knowing of the thousands of people who went
through the oval that day that she was the one I was supposed to talk to, and
yet, God did. And he kind of arranged things. In hindsight, I can say that was
God’s will.
Another
question you can ask is this, what do other people think? This is where seeking
counsel comes into play.
Proverbs
11:14 – in an abundance of counselors there is safety
It says in
Proverbs 12, ‘the way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but the wise man
seeks counsel.’ When we go to seek counsel, some people are confused on this,
they think they are seeking counsel because I am supposed to try and get
someone else to make this decision. That is not the point of seeking counsel.
When you seek counsel, you are trying to get yourself opened up to other
perspectives, you are trying to get a full view of the situation because you
are trying to make a wise decision. There are wisdom principles at play here. A
lot of the decision making we do is not related to a sign from the heavens, but
wisdom. What is the wisest course forward? What is the best chance of success
in alignment with scriptural principles? This is why we don’t seek counsel from
people who are just going to tell us what we want to hear. Somebody who doesn’t
know the situation at all, I want to seek counsel from people who will give me
a different perspective. The fool just accumulates counselors who will tell him
what he wants to hear. I remember talking to a guy once who was living in our
ministry house, I was in there too, and he was like, ‘I decided to get engaged
this weekend.’ There was a girl he was dating who lived in another city, she
seemed pretty questionable to me, of course he also was pretty questionable. I
was like, ‘whoa, alright. Did you seek any counsel on that?’ He said yes, I
asked who he talked to and he said, ‘Well mainly my girlfriend.’ I just
thought, ‘this conversation is over.’ You just do what you want to do. If you just
want to do what you want to do, don’t try and paint some veneer of spirituality
over it, just say that you want to do it. We don’t need the hypocrisy around
here. I do think it’s strange when people make big decisions and they haven’t
sought any counsel. You see Peter getting the approval of the other believers,
and a lot of scriptural teaching on this as well.
Here is
another one; how does it relate to this rescue mission that we are talking
about? There are certain decisions that will have a huge impact on your ability
to do ministry. We will talk about this in a little bit, but things like, who I
marry, pursuing different jobs, major purchases, where you live, things like
that. Certain ministry decisions have a big impact and might have consequences
for years and possibly decades. How closely does this decision relate to the
mission that God has given me? That is something to consider. This is the
question of, ‘is this thing bearing fruit already’ comes in. We need to be
creative in our different ministry efforts, but when we try something, we need
to evaluate it too, what kind of fruit is this bearing? We need to learn to
think strategically. Some of us our super-spiritual, thinking it is fleshly to
think strategically in any way. God wants us to bear fruit, fruit that remains.
We can ask, ‘is this thing bearing fruit?’ Another question, which path is most
likely to bear fruit? Sometimes you can’t tell what kind of fruit it is going
to bear, but you can think, which direction is going to benefit the kingdom of
God the most? This might be where a pros and cons list might come in handy,
think it through, seek some counsel. This question is a good gauge of how
important this decision is and how much time I need to spend thinking about it.
What about
your own gifting and calling? Has God gifted you a certain way? Have there been
signs that God has called you to a particular ministry or ministry field? If
you have two ministry fields, one super responsive, one not, our philosophy has
been to try to occupy the responsive field as much as possible because God has
thrown wide open a door for effective service. You see Paul reasoning this way.
He says in 1 Corinthians 16, he says he is going to stay at Ephesus longer
because God has thrown open a door for service and there are a lot of
adversaries. He isn’t staying there because the Holy Spirit was just telling
him to, he just ‘had a feeling.’ He saw God moving there, things were
happening, and there were threats. He couldn’t leave yet, he needed to see it
through before moving on to the next place. He had a certain calling. Peter was
very uniquely gifted for this thing that God called him to do there. He was the
leader of the apostles, the guy with the keys to the kingdom, he was pretty
well suited for this good work that God has stored up for him from before the
foundations of the world.
Fourth and
final, if you are not really getting much from these others, this is one we can
ask, what do you want to do? Some of us thing, ‘well, if I want to do this then
that must not be the will of God.’ Because God is bad, and he wants me to be
miserable. Our own preferences really come into play on a lot on these, on
things like ministry to pursue, friendships to pursue, areas like marriage,
areas like career. These are all areas where, all things being equal, we’ve got
certain preferences in these areas. I always felt like God was going to make me
marry someone who is really ugly who I am not attracted to, I had these
suspicions of him. I thought he would have me work a job that I hate. Why would
you think that about God? Is he that sadistic? He has made you a certain way,
with certain preferences, these preferences may need to be channeled and
corrected in some cases. But at the same time, a lot of times they can be
pretty legit. That is another thing to keep in mind as we are trying to figure
out the will of God in a situation.
Big
Decisions Where it is Important to Seek God’s Will
I want to
spend a little bit of time in application. What are some decisions where it is
especially important to seek God’s will? I mentioned some of these already.
Things like seeking a job or a career can have a huge impact on your ability to
serve God. Going after a career that is not going to be high paying enough,
that will leave you working super long hours, that can be really destructive to
your future family because you have to work so many hours just to scrape by and
make ends meet. We should try to plan for a career. I am talking especially to
you guys, I hope that we are thinking, when it comes to marriage and family
someday, that we are trying to plan that mom, or at least one parent can stay
home with those kids when they are little, when they really need the parent
there at home. That means we will need to make enough money to support a
family. Some jobs require tons of travel, some jobs are super demanding.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want a job where I was making tons of money either, that
can be pretty destructive. As the Proverbs say, ‘give me neither poverty nor
riches.’ I don’t want poverty, otherwise I will be tempted to steal, I don’t
want riches because otherwise I might say, ‘God who?’ Riches might actually be
pretty bad for your spiritual life.
With this
sort of thing, in my own life, at each step along the way, I just kept telling
God, ‘Lord, I am coming up to a decision point, I have prayed you will show me
what to do next.’ The way I ended up at Ohio State in the first place was
actually kind of crazy. I actually grew up near Cincinnati. I had a full ride
to UC and for some reason I ended up turning that down to come up here to Ohio
State. I think part of what it was, I was lonely and kind of nerdy. I took this
computer science course and found I had a real knack for it, I really enjoyed
it. There was a dude in that class who was really cool and took this liking to
me for some reason, I don’t know why. I found that I enjoyed doing that,
programming, and this dude was like, ‘Hey, I need a roommate for Ohio State.’
This guy was a party boy, I think he thought if he roomed with me. he would
study, which was not true. But he asked me to be his roommate and I was like,
‘Yeah!’ I had become a Christian that year and I was praying that God would guide
me, I don’t think I realized at the time that was how God was guiding me up
here. Through a strange series of events, my parents had a friend whose cousin
went to Xenos and they got me out to a college group. Even through college,
there were time where I would freak out and be like, ‘I don’t know what I am
going to do when I graduate, I don’t know if I am cut out for this.’ I would
have to just calm down and tell God, ‘I am going to trust you, show me what to
do next.’ As I was getting down toward graduation I was like, ‘I kind of want
to go to grad school, I kind of want to go and work, and so I took the GRE and
I put out some applications. I didn’t get any job and I got exactly what I
needed to get into grad school, and so I thought that was the way to go. Part
of the reason I told God I went to grad school was that I liked teaching and
wanted some experience. I got this sweet teaching position where I got paid, my
full tuition, and I was a grad student and somehow, they assigned another grad
student to grade my papers for me. I don’t know how I got that. I am getting
into grad school and I wasn’t sure what to do. I was thinking that I might want
to teach at a college, but all the options that I pursued there, the door
slammed in my face, and I got this one job offer. I wasn’t making as much as I
wanted to, but in hindsight I’m glad that I wasn’t making as much as the rest
of my buddies. I got used to living on less. At each point along the way I feel
like I asked God, I tried to do the things I needed to do, and I trusted that
he would lead me into what I needed to do. At a certain point, he led me to
leave my career and come to work for the church. At every step along the way I
just felt like God was so clearly leading me. It wasn’t like I was looking that
hard, but I was asking and trying to listen.
As we are
thinking about jobs and careers, a list of pros and cons can be pretty good
here. What are the pros and cons regarding the kingdom of God and benefits to
what he is doing here? And then what are pros and cons with regard to my own
comfort, my own bank account, my own prestige. Sometimes thinking that way can
make it click. Various ministry decisions; I think it is important to pray to
God about who we should reach out to in our class, in our job, there are a lot
of options. When is it time to say, ‘Okay you have been coming to home church
for a little while, maybe it is time to think about receiving Christ?’ If we
are going to enter into a discipleship relationship, where I am meeting with a
younger believer to help him grow, that a big decision, we want to be praying
about that. Big purchases, buying a house, buys a car. I see people make really
foolish decisions that lock them up with tons of debt that really limit their
ability to serve God and bring a bunch of stress into their life. When getting
a house, don’t go for the biggest house that the realtor will show you. The
bank is going to loan you way more money than you can afford. They are basing
it on two incomes. Consider how this will affect your life. I think seeking
some counsel on this is good. Where to live is another important decision. Am I
going to buy a place 30 minutes away from where my friends and my home church
is?Or am I going to but something close? This is an important question.
Marriage
Decision
Finally, I
think this question of marriage is a big one on a lot of our minds. I am sure
the majority of us here are unmarried. It is a big decision. It is hard to
overestimate the importance of a marriage decision for your ability to serve
God for the rest of your life. This is a permanent decision. It is going to be
with you. Some people think they can just get divorced, that is another
permanent decision. Talk to someone who has been divorced and see the permanent
damage that has done. When it comes to marriage, I just wanted to share a few
things as I was thinking about this. Proverbs 31 is good, it says, “charm is
deceptive, and beauty is fleeting.” We are at a point in our lives where we
probably look the best we are ever going to look. Also, your exposure to this
person, it’s kind of limited compared to the 24/7 arrangement you are headed
toward in marriage. What seems really fun and cute and charming for a couple of
hours a week might seem a little bit annoying 168 hours a week. The fool just
looks at the surface and is like, ‘well I’m sure God will support whatever
decision I make.’ The wise person looks past these fleeting, deceptive,
features.
We have to
ask questions like these; what does the rest of the Christian community say
about this person? That is important. I remember being in a dating relationship
being so frustrated. I just felt like people were too critical of this girl I
was dating; they were too hard on her. What I had to eventually realize is that
they weren’t being ‘too hard on here, and that she was getting a raw deal, and
if only people would believe in her,’ actually I had to realize that she had
some problems. One of the hardest things to do in dating is to see the other
people clearly, to see the negatives. It’s funny because in marriage one of the
hard things is to see the positives sometimes, especially if the marriage is
struggling. It’s hard to see things clearly and listing to what the rest of the
body of Christ is saying about this person can be pretty helpful. Positive
gossip or direct praise is a really good sign. That was something that I really
felt like was true of my wife. There were girls constantly saying that they
felt so loved by her, that they wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for her, people
raving about her etc. That is a really good sign.
Looking
for close same sex relationships is a really good piece of advice. It is one
thing if this girl can be friends with guys or vice versa, because in all of
these cross-sex relationships there is an underlying excitement that comes from
relating to the opposite sex. You need to look for how they do with people
where they don’t have that underlying romantic motivation. How do they do with
people of the same sex? Are they able to love them? How do they do with their
roommates? What do they think? What do the people who spend time with them say
about them? This is the kind of thing to look for when it comes to selecting a
spouse.
And
finally, this piece of advice right here, you can’t marry someone for what you
hope they will become. It’s not fair to them. It’s like, ‘I’ll only be happy if
they change.’ That was a question that was put to me. This girl that you are
dating, (because we had broken up after several years and I was thinking about
getting back together with her) and one of my friends was like, “Look, let’s
imagine that nothing about her changed. Would you be happy, or would you be
disappointed?’ And I was like, “I would be disappointed.” Later when I was
dating my wife and thinking about marrying her and I asked myself the same
question. She had problems but I was thrilled, even if nothing about her
changed because, to be honest, change in your spouse is very slow, if at all.
If you’re demanding that they change it is going to go especially slow. If we
can learn to accept the person and love them for who they are, we still want to
see them grow, but if my happiness in this relationship demands on them being
someone other than they are now, you are introducing something really unfair
into the relationship.
Conclusion
In
conclusion, God wants you to know his will for your life. He’s not trying to be
sneaky or hiding. He is trying to make himself clear to you. Knowing the will
of God is a great treasure, available to those who really want it. It’s not
something to be taken lightly, it’s not something where we think, ‘that’s bad
and I need to avoid that, God is trying to ruin my life,’ no, it is totally
worth it when the God of the universe who is love reveals his will for your
life, it’s got to be good for you. That’s what I want to leave you with, it’s
totally worth it.
Psalm
37:4 – Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your
heart.
I just
want to say from the bottom of my heart that I am so thankful, I am so glad for
all the times I chose to go along with God’s will. There were times when I
tried to go off track, I feel like God chased me down and pointed me back in
the right direction, I was so stubborn. God wants you to have that same
experience.
He wants
you to know how awesome it is to follow his will and he wants you to testify to
others.