God's Will for Me

Knowing God's Will for Me   Exodus 3:1-15

" If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you really believe in Him, if you have been convinced and convicted of your sin, and if you see that all your troubles are due to the fact that you have been a rebel and you have sinned and that the wrath of God is upon sin---then you do not stop at deliverance from punishment and hell. You want to get out of sin; you want to get out of the clutches of the devil, you want to start serving God; you want to be absolutely different." D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones   One of the ways we should be different is in asking God for His will in our individual lives.  How can we know what God is asking us to do not only in general terms but in the specific terms ? 

    Moses had an experience of an encounter with God at the burning bush.  It was rather obvious to Him that this was not an ordinary day in his life.  He saw the bush burning but " not consumed." Ex. 3:2  He turned to see why. Then God spoke to Him directly out of the burning bush. " Moses Moses..."  God was holy, vs. 5...." I am the God of your father.."  God reveals His Name to Moses. " I will be that I will be" in Hebrew " I am who I am" or as one Hebrew professor saw it, " I will be what I have been always."  This gives us great comfort to know that God will always be the same to us as well. God is unchanging in His nature and He is also unchanging in His promises to His people .

     God knows our sorrows, vs. 7 .  He saw and was aware of the sorrows that the people of God experienced under the hand of the Egyptians . Because He knows us, we should ask Him for His will in our lives.

     Does God have a plan for our lives?  Ephesians 1:11 says He does. We have been " predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will"  But we do not see burning bushes that are not consumed and God is not speaking to us out of them today. How do we know what He wants for us?

     He can reveal to us His plan .  Psalm 32:8 " I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt go."  In Acts 8:26 the angel of the Lord spoke unto Philip telling him where to go to speak to someone.  The main way He does this today is through the Holy Scriptures which are His will for us. " All Scripture is profitable...for instruction"

     It would be nice if we could just go and have instruction without asking for it .  Obviously today we cannot just wait for the still small voice .  God has spoken to us already in His Son Hebrews 1:1 and we should wish to see our lives conformed to His image.  The follies of this age seem to call us through various temptations and we fall away from God's law and instruction.  We fail to listen to His Word, His Church and His people but we cannot give up. We must continue to listen to Him to be pleasing unto God.

    The Holy Spirit is our indwelling teacher.  I John 2:20 " but you have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things."   The Holy Spirit gave direction to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15:28 " For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost.....", we read of the instructions given to the Apostles there.  But how is that you and I often miss these instructions?

    Our basic mistake according to JI Packer one of the foremost Anglican theologians and teachers of this time said, we are " thinking of guidance apart from the written Word of God."  He tells the story of the woman who after consecrating the day to the Lord as soon as she woke would ask Him whether she was to get up or not and would not stir until the ' voice' told her to dress.  As she put on each piece of clothing she asked the Lord whether she was to put it on.  Sometimes she had one shoe on without the other. Packer says, " the Lord, our rational Creator guides His rational creatures by rational understanding and appliction of His written Word."  The true way he says to honor the Holy Spirit is to honor the Holy Scriptures through which He guides us.

    So if we really believe and trust in Him we will be much about reading and digesting the Holy Scriptures , marking and learning them and inwardly digesting them as the Collect so aptly reminds us every year. For example if we read I Corinthians 7:39 telling believers to marry only in the Lord we will wish to follow that.  Much pain and sorrow will follow us if we fail to listen and obey His commandments which we hear once a month in our parish.  It is the train on the tracks.  Without the tracks, the train does not run too well , does it?

     Moses was called to live and trust God and go on a journey with Him that he was not thinking of .  We too are called and surrounded by God's guidance every day through the prayers of others, their godly counsel to us in our lives and in His written Word which we hear in the Church of God . 

     It would be well for us to hear what Packer says about some pitfalls to avoid in our Christian lives in seeking God's guidance.  First we often have an unwillingness to think.  Deut 32:29  " O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end."  Secondly, we should weigh the long term consequences of our decisions.  Thirdly he says we should take advice, Proverbs 12:15  " the way of fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."  ( packer says here, " there are always people who know the Bible, human nature, and our own gifts and limitations better than we do, and even if we cannot finally accept their advice, nothing but good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say...."

      Fourthly, " to suspect oneself"  We dislike being realistic with ourselves. Psalm 139 we pray that God would search us , and try us, know our hearts , and see if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. vs 23-24.  Fifth-  I Thess 5:21says we should " prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." in others we should discount personal magnetism.  Lastly, we should wait.  Ps 40:1 " wait patiently upon the LORD"  This is a constant refrain throughout the Scriptures.

     Remember Moses was in the desert a long while after fleeing Egypt.  " And in came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard ....and remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob....." Ex 2:24  God will take all of our trials, our mistakes, frustrations and sooner of later will bring us out of our darkness into His light.

     Conclusion- Joseph Hart said , " ' Tis Jesus, the first and the last, Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home; We'll praise Him for all that is past , and trust Him for all that's to come."