Sermon: "How Can I Know God's Will?"

Third in the "Real Questions" series.
Delivered August 28, 2005 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Theme: This message deals with three important foundational truths that position us to discern God's will in the area of personal decisions.

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I find it interesting as Andy was sharing a little bit earlier about God's will that again this, and I know you are all thankful that this is the last time you are going to hear this about my installation, but I find it really interesting that the day that I preach on this subject and the installation are the same day, only hours apart. And the reason I say that I find it interesting is because so many times the coinciding of how I have answered the question has had to do with this church and the way God has led me in my life, and kind of woven the tapestry of my experience, has connected with Central Church in very many real ways. I recall in 1976 that I had been working two years for Campus Crusade for Christ. My wife and I had been out in California working with high school kids and I remember the decision, how hard it was to make a decision to leave that ministry and move back here. We were pregnant with our first and I felt like Jonah. I remember saying to myself like I have gotten out of God's will. I left this ministry that I was once in, and now I am out of God's will and I was afraid that that had happened. But it wasn't a short time after that that I met one of the elders here and they introduced me to the church and I started as Youth Director here in 1977 and then in 1979, Pastor Smoot rolled the dice on me and let me preach for the first time in 1979. And I had no clue. I am just a youth guy you know. I didn't know what was going on. The pulpit used to be right here and I remember being in that room and my knees were knocking. I was just as scared as you can be. I think the church was about as full as this; maybe even more full and there were more rows then. We moved the stage already, but anyway I was so scared and yet in spite of that fear I remember stepping in to the pulpit and having a sense that it felt right. I don't know. I wasn't expecting that feeling. I wasn't expecting that sense, but I had a sense that this was somehow a fit. And so that was confirming of God's will.

And then in 1984 when the youth had completely burned me out and I was ready to do a real job then I thought, "What am I going to do?" I am just kidding Amy. It is a real job. The elders of this church said, "Well what are you going do?" I said, "I don't know. I will take a course. I will go to seminary one course a semester and work somewhere." And they said, "No, no, no. We want to send you to seminary." And so people and families in this church supported us. We had three small children at the time and so we could do seminary in three years. And then in 1986 when I was done with seminary some people called and said, "Well what do you think about coming back as the associate pastor?" And I said, "No I can't come back as the associate paster. It just wouldn't work." And so I prayed a whole day, a whole day and I said, "Okay I am going to look in to it." And after praying a whole day, I called the pastor who was here then and in the space of like three minutes it was so clear that the door had shut. Bamm. It just wasn't supposed to happen. And I had always thought about this and I thought well then maybe I am just not supposed to be it. And then I studied after 12 years of ministry in a church in Pennsylvania, I was thinking about going in to interim ministry. I studied. I was working out. I was thinking about it and it all just seemed to fit. And if I hadn't been an interim pastor then Central when you needed me in 2000, or when you needed an interim pastor in 2000, I couldn't have come back. And then last year in 2004, John being one of the thousand, or one of the hundred, or one of the ten-thousand, I don't know who else would ask me to come back, but John did. And because of his trust in me and belief, it's like okay here I am again. It's getting tired isn't it? It's like whoa. We have heard this story enough. But what I am trying to say is that there is a tapestry of God's will and part of what I want to share with you today is that by God's grace, although I have failed many, many times, I felt like that some of the things that I want to share with you about positioning myself to be able to discern God's will when those personal decisions come up is really, really important.

As Andy said, you know many times this is about what should I do? What personal decision should I make? If you took this question, "How can I know God's will?" and ask it in another context of agriculture society let's say, let's say you ask this question in a society where somebody was going to be a farmer all their life, their father was a farmer all their life, they knew their son was going to be a farmer all his life, then how does the question translate? It's not like, "Am I going to be a farmer?" Yeah, I am going to be a farmer. The question is then, "Well how do I live?" And so how can I know God's will is based on living God's way and God's way, Micah 6:8, what does the Lord require of you? What is his will? That you do justice, that you love kindness and that you will walk humbly with your God. And that's a way of discerning God's will. We will discern God's will when we follow God's way. The scripture is very clear about this. In Ephesians 5:17 Paul said, "Do not be foolish." Do we have that slide up there? Ephesians 5:17? "Do not be foolish" he says. "Therefore do not be foolish, do not be senseless, do not be not understanding, but understand what the will of the Lord is." It's a command. It's not a suggestion. He says it negatively. He says, "Don't be without understanding. Don't be foolish." That's what it means. Understand what the will of the Lord is. When he says understand what the will of the Lord is, that word understand has been used in other contexts in Greek culture to speak of the convergence of two rivers coming in to one.

We used to live in Northumberland, Pennsylvania for 12 years. I know many of you know where that is, but I will tell you just in case. It's an hour north of Harrisburg and the thing that is so distinctive about this 5,000 person town is that it sits right in the fork of the two branches of the Susquehanna River. The western branch comes form way out near Pittsburgh. The northern branch comes from upstate North York and right at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, right in between those two is where the Susquehanna forms one river and then flows another hundred miles or so down in to the Chesapeake Bay. The convergence, the understanding that I think God is trying to say, or what Paul is trying to say in this is a coming together of God's principles, God's word and the unique person that God has made each of us. Each one of us is unique and designed in a specific unique sense. Nobody has the gift mix, the abilities, the experiences, the personality that you do. No one. And so the convergence of the principles of God's word and your unique design help you to understand some of those personal decisions.

Now I could talk about the five things that Blane Smith says you should think about in trying to make personal decisions and he talks about desires: "What is your desire? He talks about what is your ability, study of God's word, counsel of others, what are your circumstances? You could read, that book. I mean he's got so many good things in there. Blane Smith. "Knowing God's Will". Or you could go back to the "Purpose Driven Life" and you could read Rick Warren's thing again about your shape: S-H-A-P-E. Your Spiritual gifts, your Heart or your passions, your Abilities, your Personality and your Experiences; again your shape. But the main thing about all of this is that God's will for you is expressed uniquely in who he has made you to be. And your gift to God is taking that and offering it and giving it back to him with a life that pleases him.

There was an original question on a pew card that led to this question of how to know God's will and the original question, I think that's a slide too, was this: that we have to be kind of like go-getters. We have to be aggressive in trying to figure out our career or figure out what we are supposed to do. How can we advertise our gifts and still maintain humility? How can we advertise our gifts and still maintain humility? Or put another way on the pew card, how does a person's competitive desires fit in with God's pathway? Well the fact of the matter is that God has put all the desires, the good desires in your life. God has put drive in our lives. The word enthusiasm actually comes from en Theos, or God in one. And so, this drive is what caused one of the church fathers to say, "the glory of God is a human being fully alive, fully experiencing God's grace and fully offering back to God what he has made you uniquely to be." And you know there is nothing more miserable than the opposite. There is nothing more miserable than feeling stuck, like not in your niche or shape and part of knowing God's will is well what exactly is that and I want to show you a movie clip from October Sky. Maybe some of you have seen this movie. It's about Homer Hickam. Homer grew up in Coal Wood, West Virginia and the whole theme of the movie is that his dad you know saying that you are going to be a coal miner all your life. I mean that's what you are going to be. But he has a dream that he's going to be somebody who makes and builds rockets and it's a tremendous tension, but circumstances lead him to a place where he's got to work in a coal mine. I want to you just look at this clip for a second and think about how miserable he really is because he is not in his fit.

(video clip shown)

I am not sure but it was kind of washed out in there, but when he was in the cage and he was going down, what you couldn't see was that he was looking up in to the stars and he saw a Sputnik going across the universe and that was about his dream. And it was very, very clear that he was not in his mix, in his fit.

And so the path we take as Christians should be based on our design and our desires, not because of greed or pride, but because God has placed those desires within us. I want you to think about something, about creation. That God took six days to work himself, and create a certain design. And then he sat back after creating for six days and he looked it over and he rested and he reflected and he concluded this is all good. And you are part of what is all good, that product of all good. Now, even though we were good, we went our own separate way and the Lord brought Jesus to bring us back to himself. But when God created, he followed his nature in creation, he didn't work against his own nature in creating. So the question is why would he make you a certain way and then want you to work against the nature of who he has made you to be? It doesn't make any sense. Many times we think in a Christian experience we will be in God's will when we are good and miserable, you know? When we really hate what we are doing, then that must be what God wants. God desires our good. God desires our good and you know what, even if you make mistakes, if you think whatever mistakes are, whether they really are mistakes according to the word of God or whether you just think they are mistakes, like I was thinking about leaving a certain ministry, whatever. God is so desirest of our good, that he will take even those things and he will turn them to fulfill his purposes if you will do a few things. Okay, if you will do a few things.

And part of those few things is what we are going to read about in Romans, Chapter 12. Just as a contrast I want you see, I hope this clip is a little bit sharper, but I want you to see what it was like between what he experienced in the mine and what he experienced when he started to get in connection with what God was making him to be. Okay, let's take a look at that second clip.

(Video clip plays here).

Something happened internally and even though he was in the mine, it caused him to stay up all night. That's one great passion question. What is it that you would stay up all night talking about that would help you to discover your passion? What drives you? What makes you interested so much that you forget that time is passing? That's what happened with him. But again, we will learn best God's will when we live in God's way and that's what Romans, 12, 1 to 8 is saying here. And I know there was Scripture passage in this sermon somewhere and here it is. Okay, Romans, Chapter 12, 1 to 8 and I am going to concentrate just on the first three verses. We are going to read the whole text, but I want to concentrate on the first three verses because each of the first three verses is three points, three things that if we will do, we will position ourselves to be able to discern God's will and answer the question for us, even in the area of personal decisions. Here's the text.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."

Do you hear the passion connected to the gift in all of those things? The first thing that helps us discern God's will: we can discern God's will when we offer ourselves entirely to God as best as we understand on a continuous basis. He says, therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy; in view of the 11 chapters of the gospel that came before, in view of the fact that Jesus died for us, that the Spirit is given to us, that we are already residents of the kingdom, that we are headed for heaven. In view of all of these merciful things, in the cross and the resurrection, offer your bodies, offer your whole body, your whole self so that you might be a living, holy, pleasing to God sacrifice. He goes on to say that this is your spiritual service of worship. Another translation says this is your reasonable service and that 'reasonable' word is I think more appropriate because the Greek work is logikos, which we get the word logical from. In other words, one of the Greek philosophers put it this way: he said, an animal acts like an animal; because I am human, because I am logikos, I must praise God, because it's in the nature of humanity. Because we are God's creation, the most intelligent thing that any of us could ever do is offer ourselves to God fully. And when we do that by God's grace, we will be a living, holy, pleasing to God sacrifice. A living sacrifice, you've heard the joke probably before, you know you are a living sacrifice you can crawl up on the alter, that means you can get off when you offer yourself. Living in this context, I believe means that you are now living in Jesus Christ. You were dead before. But now you are a living sacrifice in your union with Jesus. In that union, offer who you are in Jesus Christ in a holy way.

What does holy mean? It means it belongs to God. If something is holy, it's his; in a way that's pleasing to God. I can not think of a more strong picture that emphasizes the idea of totally surrendering and being pliable in God's hands than the picture that this verse paints. All that you know of yourself, give to all that you know of God, is a way of offering yourself. Exchange your life for God's life in you and offer that continuously. In that way we will position ourselves to be knowing God's will. You know the idea of an offering back in the Old Testament is when that offering left the hands of the giver, it left the hands of the giver. It was no longer under that person's control. And even when a priest would eat from the offering that was already given to God, it wasn't like they were eating what they had given, they were now understanding themselves to be sharing the hospitality of God; that God was actually sharing what he had with them instead of the other way around. So the whole picture here is offering oneself fully.

I remember in 1987, it was March of 1987, during the time from the ending of seminary to that moment, I had been basically locking myself in to a search for ministry that only included associate pastor. I was afraid of being the solo pastor or whatever the senior pastor or whatever, because I had seen what happens to solo and senior pastors sometimes and I was not about to go there and do that. So I said, I will offer myself this much: associate pastor. And isn't it hilarious that I finally get my wish after 18 years, that it finally happened? But for those 18 years it was not supposed to be and when I was in a Lenten Service, in the First Presbyterian Church of Holland, the pastor had an envelope and a letter in the bulletin and he says, Okay this is Ash Wednesday, 40 days, what are you going to offer God in this 40 days and I didn't hesitate at all. I wrote down, God I offer you myself in whatever way you want me to serve. It doesn't matter. Associate, solo, senior, whatever, here it is. I put it in the box in front of the worship service. I came back home that night and it wasn't five minutes before the phone rang and the folks up in Sunberry had offered me the call to be a Senior Pastor. God almost like had to get me to a place of being willing to do that in order to do it with integrity and to do it with joy. And so the first thing that Paul says is that if you want to discern God's will, you have to be willing to offer all that you know of yourself and all of your gifts to all that you know of God. It's always an authentic move to do that.

Secondly, he says we discern God's will best when we renew ourselves in God continuously. Look at Verse 2. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world." Now the sense is this: stop allowing yourself to be conformed. See before you were in Jesus Christ, you had no choice. You are going to be conformed to the values and the thinking of this world, but now that you are in Christ, stop allowing yourself to be conformed to the pattern of this age, but be transformed; in other words continue now to let yourself be transformed-okay there is kind of a passive nature to this in one way-and let yourself be transformed. How? By the renewing of your mind. Here's a twist on today's question, How can I know God's will? Why don't I do God's will when I know it? You know why, same answer. Because I haven't had my mind renewed. Paul is saying there is so much faulty thinking, unhealthy thinking in the world and all the messages of the world, you will never be able to sort out healthy thinking from unhealthy worldly thinking unless you do so by the plumb line of God's word. You will never be able to get it. You have to discern it by the word of God. He doesn't say be transformed by dedication in this way or be transformed by doing good works or be transformed by praying even, he says be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you might be able to prove by testing and by searching what the good, pleasing and perfect will of God is. See, we won't recognize God's will, let alone obey it until we understand it through the renewal of our mind.

If you were called by your bank and your bank said or you got it in the mail you have an overdraft statement of $850 and you called the people at the bank and you said, "What is this all about?" And they said, "Oh we just had a feeling that you were overdrafted." And you say, "Hey, as long as you had a feeling, I guess its okay. I will go ahead and pay it or I will go ahead and make it." Your mind would not give you any rest until you went through your checkbook and you saw every deposit and everything and you went on line... you would not rest until you figured that out, right? Same thing with what Paul was saying in renewing your mind. It's not about just feeling, its about renewing your mind and when you renew your mind continuously according to the word of God, you will position yourself to be sensitive to the Spirit, in God's leading in the particular choices. This is vital to our spiritual life as food and water is to our physical life.

So we offer ourselves, we renew ourselves and lastly he says, we discern God's will when we assess ourselves: when we assess ourselves continuously according to the faith. Verse 3. "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you;" notice that: Paul saying now that by the grace that God gave me, I say to every one of you, it is so emphatic. Each person, not just you all out there, I say to each and every one of you, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgments in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." Now if you try to translate this you can't really get it too well, but basically there are four words that have the word 'think' in them. And roughly it would be, 'no high think,' 'ought think,' 'think sensible,' 'think.' In other words translated, think about what you are thinking about. Okay? Think about what you are thinking about. Each and every one of you continuously on what basis? Think of yourself so you won't be so high minded, think that God has given you the gift of grace in Jesus Christ and God has given you the gift of grace. In other words, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. You are no higher or no lower than anybody else, that because of God's grace, think with sober judgment that you are in Christ. That's why you have a gift to even offer to God and think not only 'the grounds level,' but think 'yes I am in Christ.' God has called me to experience his grace and his love in union with Jesus Christ. Think soberly. Think with sound judgment.

I remember at the end of my 11 1/2 year pastorate at Sunberry, I was agonizing on how to end that. I mean I just felt like things, I had just played all my chips, I just felt like I had done everything I could. I put so much blood, sweat and tears in to that experience and it was coming to and end and I just felt like I didn't have anymore to give. And yet there was a part of me that was thinking, 'But so many people will be inconvenienced' or 'So many people depend upon me' or maybe I didn't say this, but I think 'I am indispensable to this place.' It's like What? That is like high thinking. That's not sober thinking and I remember pacing in my office and it was like Jesus was sitting in the chair and I just sat down in my office and there was another chair across and it was almost like I visualized Jesus and Jesus saying what he says to so many people in the Gospel: "What do you want me to do for you?" "What do you want?" And just out loud with nobody in the office I said, "I want to be done here." And then it was like the Lord said, "Okay then be done here. My will isn't about you being here forever. My will is about you walking with me trying to discern the Spirit." And that's when I was thinking about interim ministry and went on and did interim ministry. In other words, I had gotten to a place where I was not thinking soberly and after counsel of others and reading the Word and doing some other study it seemed like this was the next logical step for me based on the desires that God was giving me as I tried to offer myself, renew myself and assess myself in his sight.

Now I want to show you the last clip, the ending clip of this movie because it just puts it all together. Remember I said I thought I would be inconveniencing myself, I remember Oswald Chambers commenting on when Jesus was going to the cross and how Simon of Cyrene, remember that? He was pressed in to service to help Jesus carry the cross and Oswald Chambers said, "You know what? When you follow God's will, sometimes others are going to be inconvenienced." But I want you to think about that just a little further. Because Jesus followed God's will many were blessed. Right? Many were blessed. You and I were blessed because of it and so I want you to see the end of this movie, because there is such a clear expression of how many people are blessed because Homer followed his God given design in his life and one thing you need to know about this scene, he was at odds with his dad the whole movie. His dad wanted him to be a coal miner. He wanted to be a rocket scientist, right? And at the end his dad never ever saw him blast off any of these rockets. The whole town would come out, but his dad never would. Keep that in mind as you watch this and hope it comes out clearly.

(3rd Video clip plays)

This is a true story and Homer Hickam ended up being a person who trained astronauts for space shuttle missions and fulfilled his dream. The glory of God is a human being fully alive in Christ understanding the gift and the design that God has given to you, and enthusiastically offering it back to God. And when you do that, when you offer yourself, you assess yourself and you renew yourself, you can't miss God's will.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your love and grace to us. So many of us today perhaps are trying to understand the answer to that question in a personal way. Some feel like they have been stuck for a long time or they don't know which way to turn, so we pray for them that you would shed the light of your word and other counsel upon them so that they might know and some Lord today know that they have been going the wrong way, but we pray that you would help them just turn back to you and get back on the path and some Lord today are content to know what's going on, but no matter where we are we make it our aim to please you. Even if we have made mistakes, or even if we have done things that we are ashamed of, help us to realize that even that's part of your tapestry if we will simply start today to offer ourselves again to renew ourselves and to assess ourselves wisely in your sight. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org