Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast. My name is Kosti Hinn, and I have the pleasure of being your host. For the Gospel is all about providing sound doctrine for everyday people. And on today's episode, I want to unpack what the Bible teaches about the will of God. One of the most common questions I get as a pastor, how do I know God's will? Now, some people try to feel their way into it. Others will freeze up and they're paralyzed with fear when making decisions because they're afraid to make the wrong decision. And that's really understandable. I think we've all been there a time or two. Others think, well, God's sovereign, so he just controls every person like a puppet. You know, it really doesn't matter what you do, he's just going to do it anyway. And others will think that God controls nothing at all, and he just sort of shows up at the end of life and makes sure everything ends up okay. I would say this too many people are confused about God's will. I want to be clear about it on our podcast so that you can make decisions, you can assess and discern. You could even dream big, you could serve the Lord, you could have joy, you could desire things in life and to accomplish something in life and to make good decisions, and you could have peace of mind knowing that you are in God's will. Uh, Pastor Anthony Wood did a great video on this exact topic on our YouTube channel. So if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel and you're listening to this podcast all the time, uh humorously, what are you doing with your life? Let's go. Subscribe. We've got a lot of free, short, clear videos for you. Uh, but more seriously, subscribe and get the free content, grow from it, learn from it, and share it on your social media. It's a great way to be more edifying in this time where social media is so chaotic and conflicting. The author of Hebrews is making something clear about the will of God, that it's supposed to be a doing thing. In other words, you are supposed to do the will of God. In Hebrews 13, 20 and 21, this is what it says. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will. Big key phrase there. Working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, there's another element of doing, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I know in my own life, I'm sure in your life, I want to do God's will, I want to please Jesus, to whom glory be due forever and ever. Amen. Well, how do we do that? And how do we understand the will of God? Well, let's look at this first. I want to talk about information. That's kind of what to do and what it's all about, and then transformation, which is how to do it. How do you do the will of God? The first reality that I want you to have and understand is that you need to educate yourself with the right information. We need to know what the Bible says about God's will. The Bible talks a lot about God's will. People will say, you know, I feel like this, or here's what I experienced, or this, that, and the other. But the Bible speaks about two particular wills, and I'm going to prove that to you. The first is God's predestined will. Theologians call this his sovereign will, or his secret will, or his decreed will. It's the kind of will that nobody can stop or control. God's predestined will saves whoever he wants. He sent Jesus to the cross and nobody could stop it. That was his will. It is totally under his control. He has determined the time when Christ will return. You can't stop that, neither can I. It's predestined. He has orchestrated tiny details without us even realizing it. He divinely appoints people. He appoints seasons and trials, successes, failures, opportunities, changes, and more. This is a will that you need to know about, but really you don't need to be worried about. I'm going to say that again. God's predestined will or his secret will, the things that he has decreed, are things you don't need to worry about, but you need to know about. In other words, how are you going to die one day? God knows that. How long will you live? The Bible says that he's numbered your days already. You don't need to worry about it every day because you're never going to know anyway until glory. Some examples of God's predestined will. One, it can't be resisted. Romans 9 19, the Bible says this, and it's really God saying it, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will the molded thing say to its molder, Why have you made me like this? When God is talking about salvation and whom he saves in Romans chapter 9, we see that his will cannot be resisted. Another example of God's predestined will is in Acts 16, 6, and we see that he controls opportunities. The Bible says, and they went through the region of Fergia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. There's an interesting moment in which God's predestined will controlled the opportunity that early church apostles had whether to speak the word in a region or not. Another example of God's predestined will is in Psalm 115, verse 3. I say this with a touch of humble humor because there's no way around this. God's predestined will means he can do whatever he wants. God's predestined will is whatever he wants. Psalm 115.3. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. I love deeper answers. I love to know the why. I love when people help me understand and they reason with me. But there is a moment in which you come upon passages like Psalm 115.3 and you simply say, God, you have decreed, you have predestined your will. There is a will in which you are going to do whatever you want. Whatever pleases you, you do it. Isaiah 46, verses 10 and 11 is another great example, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose, the Lord says, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country, I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed, I will do it. Those are direct quotes from Isaiah 46. Are you hearing the personal pronoun? God, I have spoken, I will do it, I have purposed. There is a predestined element to God's will that you and I need to understand. A couple more. John five thirty, I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me. John six thirty-eight, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Jesus was fulfilling, predetermined, prophesied, predestined plans and the purposes of God. God's decreed will was what he was doing. Nobody was going to stop it. And we even see that throughout the New Testament gospel narratives in which these things are happening. If you just read about the cross, you go, you know, late in Matthew's gospel and you read through Jesus' trial, Jesus' crucifixion, when they cast lots for his robe, all of it. And you'll see these all caps letters in your Bible in some translations in which there's Old Testament prophecy being quoted, and the Bible says, these things occurred, or these things happened, or these things came to pass to fulfill what the scriptures said. Well, what is all that? It's God's unthwarted, sovereign, predestined plan. Finally, God's predestined will must be respected. I would encourage you, especially if you're a regular listener and a part of our ministry and you support what we're doing here and you want to learn from for the gospel. I join you in this as do all our contributors. Let's be very careful to ever disrespect God's will by downplaying predestination and downplaying God's sovereign decrees and saying, oh, so what? He just, you know, said it and forget it and does this, or oh, so God just doesn't care about this. Oh, God just this. Let's be very careful when we describe things that make us uncomfortable, like predestination. And let's respect the fact that God has decreed and predestined things. You and I don't know everything. We are the clay. Remember that. I will too. I am a little piece of clay, insignificant, moldable, and usable only because the God of this universe decided to shape and then use this little ball of dirt. That's what you and I are. We're made from dust. We're clay. My wife the other day was uh catechizing our youngest son, and she said, Who created you? And he yelled, God. And then she said, and in whose image did he create you? And he said, dirt. And he what he meant was that he's been created from dust, because we were explaining to him that God made man from dust. And so she said, Whose image are you created? He said, dirt. She said, No, whose image? He said, God, and he he got it in the end, but dirt. What a humbling reminder from you know a little kid in their perspective. May we all keep that perspective. I am made from dirt. I am dust. I don't know more than God. It doesn't matter what makes me uncomfortable or what stretches my little finite brain. He has predetermined and predestined plans that he will accomplish. So finally, it must be respected. James four, verses thirteen to sixteen, another element of this humbling reality. James says, Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you don't know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You could even add your name maybe in there in commentary. What's your life, Costi? What's your life, Joe? What's your life, John? What's your life, Mark? What's your life? And just add your name. For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast about in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Man, I don't know about you, but there's times in my life where I say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Hey, there's a good element to having what I would describe as sort of a spiritual picture or spiritual vision for your life, meaning you're looking out and you you you imagine this picture. That's what we say when we use the word vision, not like some weird, you know, mystical thing. Just a picture or a vision of where we want to get to. Okay, good. That's awesome. But say what you want to do and then submit to what the Bible says. You could say, I want to be a pastor, I want to sing for Jesus, I want to write music, I want to make Jesus famous, or I want to win souls for the glory of God. I want to marry an amazing spouse. I want to work hard. I want to have a great job. I want to have a good education. Great, absolutely. May it be, but Lord, your will be done. You got to respect that God is not going to make all your dreams come true, He's going to accomplish His will. And so try your best to pray prayers that are both seeking great things for God, but submitted to the sovereign will of God. Second, we don't just have God's predestined will or his secret or decreed will, but we have God's presented will. I'm going to call it, just to use two P's, His predestined and His presented. Well, if His predestined will is that which is determined by Him, sometimes kept secret and not known by us, well, His presented will is what theologians would call perceptive or His commanded or His revealed will. This is the kind of will that you need to know about and be concerned with. It's the kind of will that helps you clearly know what God has commanded. And let me go further, and I want to make sure this is very clear for those of you that might misunderstand what I'm saying. This is a will you can actually resist. Now, I'm not saying you can resist all of God's predestined plans or his purposes. I'm saying this. God gives us clear commands in Scripture, and you tell me rhetorically right now, can you obey? Yes. Can you disobey? Yes. So there are times where God lays out his will. Do this, like where he tells uh the church at Thessalonica to be free from sexual immorality and that their sanctification is his will. Well, if you jump into rampant sexual immorality, you are actually resisting or disobeying God's presented will. So understanding the difference there is really important. Even though God reveals his will and gives you commands to live, he does not force you to do this will. And so that answers the question, you know, if God is sovereign and his will can't be resisted, you know, what are we? Just puppets? No. There are many examples in which in the New Testament we're commanded to do things that are God's will, and we could do them or not do them. One in particular, 1 Peter 2, 13 to 15, uh and on through 1 Peter 2 has a lot about submission, submission to uh government and human institutions, of course, the right ones, not just obeying them into sin, uh, being a gracious employee in the midst of injustice at the hands of your employer. He goes on in 1 Peter 3 to talk about the interaction between husbands and wives and having a submissive heart, a submissive spirit, wives to husbands, never, of course, into sin, but also husbands to him, to the Lord, husbands submitting to God. You could see that God's in Scripture, his will is revealed as one that says, I want my people to be known for submitting and obeying the right things the right way at the right time. Well, if God's will is that you be obedient to his word and you disobey, well, then you are disobeying his presented will. Another one is that you be sanctified. God's will is that you be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 through 5. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. God's will is that you be sanctified. Another one, God's will, his presented will, is that you suffer faithfully, if you endure suffering for your faith, that you do it well. First Peter 3 17, it's better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, then for doing evil. 1 Peter 4 19, therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. You and I can never say that it's not God's will for us to suffer. The Bible says, unless you want to buck up against that, that there are many times in which it's God's will that people suffer for their faith. Another one, his will is that we rejoice, pray, and give thanks always. First Thessalonians 5, 16 to 18 says that, literally, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. That's an example of God's presented will. He's revealed that to us. You can do it or you cannot do it. My prayer is that if we're true believers, we would all be seeing patterns of obedience in these areas. Another one, his presented will is that you redeem the time you've been given. Ephesians 5, 15 to 17 says this look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. You are to understand it, seek it out, pray for discernment, and see that God has called you to redeem the time, using it for his glory. One more, that you be filled with the spirit. Another great example, Ephesians 5 18, the Bible says, Do not get drunk with wine, that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. God wants you filled with the Spirit, walking in the Spirit. You read through Galatians 5 and you see if you walk according to the Spirit, you won't carry out the deeds of the flesh. So that's some good, helpful general information about God's will. Categories are God's predetermined will or predestined will. This is the will you can't stop, you can't resist it. It's gonna happen. It's related to salvation, it's related to the plans of God, Jesus, prophecy, his power, his purposes, all that he has said will be is going to be. And then you have God's preceptive or presented will. It's what he's put in scripture that he wants you to do. As a believer, you're commanded to do it. As a believer who's still on this side of heaven, you're going to blow it sometimes in sin and not do it. You repent, you turn to Christ, you walk in obedience and faithfulness as one of his people. But understand the Bible says this is his will for you to live this way, and you need to. One of the best books I've ever read on this topic is a short book. I actually pulled a few from there, like be submissive and be sanctified and to suffer, is from John MacArthur. The book is called Found, and then there's a colon, God's Will. You can go to GTY.org, go check out Grace2U and order it. The book is super cheap. I think it's like $1.75. It's small, it's short, it's like 70-something pages. We have a copy in our house. We're always reading through it, talking with our kids about it, and every once in a while we'll just go back through it and be reminded of God's will. Um, let's finish with a couple of keys that will help you not just experience better understanding with information, but I want you to experience a decision-making transformation. You understand there's God's predestined will. You understand there is God's presented will, his preceptive will, what he's commanded. Well, how should that impact your decisions? First, number one, you need to be saved to care about God's will. So if you're listening to this and you think, I don't really care about the will of God, I've never really been interested in the will of God, or I just sort of throw the will of God off to the side like it doesn't really matter, understand. You may be experiencing what the natural person does, the unbeliever. 1 Corinthians 2 14 to 16 says the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they are folly to him. So let's stop there and let me go even further. If you find this subject matter to even be silly or foolish or nonessential, if you're a person who believes that God said it and forget it, like he's some open theistic deity that just turned the dial and looked down the tunnel of time and thought, ah, it'll all work out. They'll figure it out. I'll show up at the end. Brother or sister, you may not understand your God, or he may not even be your God. So let me encourage you and challenge you, not with my words, but the words of Paul to the Corinthians, which are inspired by the Holy Spirit. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord, Paul says, so as to instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ. My question for you is do you have the mind of Christ? Is your mind filled with his word? Do you care about his will? Do you understand who he is? Now, certainly many of us with the best of intentions are following Jesus and we've just never been taught. But if you find indifference in your heart regarding the will of God, I want to encourage you to repent. That means to change your mind and go turn to Christ, ask him for help, and begin to care deeply by the power of the Holy Spirit working inside of you about his will, seeking to understand and obey it. Number two, you need to read the Bible to know God's will. You are not going to know God's will by sitting around with your fingers crossed, trying to read the tea leaves, and ask him to reveal it to you through some mystical experience. Paul says in Romans 12 1 and 2 I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living holy sacrifice acceptable. To God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect. You get transformed by renewing your mind, and your mind gets renewed when you fill it with God's word. Colossians 3 16 says, To let the word of Christ dwell within you richly. When you let it dwell within you, you're going to know his will, meditate on his will. And then, number three, you're going to submit to the Bible to do God's will. First John 2, verse 3 says, And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. You want to know if you're living out the will of God? Just look at what his word says and ask, Am I living that? And finally, you need to pray for the strength to accept God's will. Here's what I mean by that. There's going to be times where you're challenged by the will of God, and you may even think, I don't know if I can do that, or I don't know if I really want to. Oh, this is going to be so hard. And you, some of you are people pleasers and you are not sure and you get anxious. So remember Jesus' prayer in Luke 22, 42. If you haven't memorized this by now, we speak about it a lot at for the gospel. Jesus praying to the Father before the cross. Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Here's the secret that every pastor knows. If you are doing all those things, you're being submitted to the will of God, you're studying God's word to know his will, you follow him, you obey him, you're doing things that revolve around his glory. Your decisions then are going to be soaked in scripture. You're controlled by the Holy Spirit, you're living with the mind of Christ. And so what you decide to do, if it's obedient to the word, do it. It's going to be from him and through him and for him. People who don't know God's word are insecure about God's will. You, my beloved brother or sister, don't ever have to live that way. There's better ways to live. Know his word, internalize his will, and then go on obeying him and make your decisions for his glory. Again, that book that I'd encourage you to get from Grace2U is Found God's Will by John MacArthur. I want to thank you all for being with me today on the For the Gospel podcast. Uh, to check out my latest book that actually involves some elements of healing in God's will. You can order more than a healer on Amazon.com or Christianbook.com for free video teachings. You can check us out on YouTube. Subscribe to our channel there for free videos to learn, grow, and share. Also, we're on social media, so check us out on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. And we've got a new merch store. So be sure to check that out as well. We'll be back with another episode next Monday. For now, keep on living for the gospel.