“God’s Will Made Clear”
(Phil. 3:15-17)
Dr. Richard S. Koole
Chapel Pointe
October 26, 2008
I. Introduction
A. When I first crossed the Sinai
1. Leading a Holy Land Tour
2. Crossed from Israel
3. Sinai Peninsula
a. Hot and dry
b. Even during February
B. When Israel crossed the Sinai
1. Under Moses
a. The Exodus
2. Had to cross the Sinai with 600,000 men plus women and children
3. Burns during day….freezes at night
C. Easy to get lost
1. It all looked the same to me
a. Yet God guided them
2. Does He still guide people?
a. Tough decisions and the will of God
3. Today…. “God’s promise to make his will clear”
II. Review
A. Your life compared to a “race” (Phil. 3:13-14)
1. Our goal is to finish strong
a. Become more like Christ
b. Press toward the goal
2. Some tips on winning the race
a. Don’t rest during the race
b. Don’t get distracted
c. Don’t look back
d. Don’t quit early
e. Don’t make the wrong turn
B. How do we do this?
1. High School Cross Country meets
a. Running through the woods and fields
b. How do you know where to go next?
c. Somebody has gone ahead and “marked the course”
1. White chalk lines to guide the runners
2. But how do we know what to do next in life?
a. Talk with Fred and John
b. How do we find and recognize God’s will?
c. Are there markers and guides?
1. God’s chalk lines
d. Is it clearly marked?
III. Text
A. Instructions (Phil. 3:15-16)
(15) “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. (16) Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
1. Mature believers should agree with what Paul was saying
a. “To the mature”
1. Those who are seeking to be like Christ
b. “should take such a view of things”
1. They should have the same goal as Paul
a. To be like Christ
b. And not quit until their race is over
2. But…to those who were struggling with what Paul said:
a. “And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.”…..v.15
b. If you don’t think this should be your goal and passion
1. Or if you start to drop out of the race
2. Or if you get lost and confused…
c. “that too God will make clear to you.”
1. “make clear”
a. The Greek word means “to reveal, uncover, or unveil”
2. God will eventually show them the error of their way
3. Even if it meant chastening them (Heb. 12:5-11)
3. But, how does God make things clear to us???
4. Each of us is at a different point in the race
a. “Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” (v.16)
b. Can’t expect all to have the same level of maturity
1. Some of you are very young believers
c. The key is to keep moving forward in your quest to be more like Christ
1. Direction…not perfection
5. God has given us three guides to keep us moving in the right direction
1. To help you figure out what God wants you to do next
2. Three guides that will help you spot the markers in the course God has laid out for your life
3. The first is in verse 17
B. How God Makes Clear His Will
1. Through People (v.17)
(17) Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.”
a. People guide by their example
1. “Follow my example”
a. What a claim by Paul
b. An example
2. Paul was willing to serve as a pattern for others
a. Like a “sewing pattern”
3. Paul wasn’t boasting
a. He knew his life was in order
b. Not afraid to have people copy it
4. People in my life who have been patterns
a. Dr. John R. Dunkin
1. He never pretended to be perfect or pious
2. “Fear not…God will provide”
b. John MacArthur
c. Joe and people skills
1. “What can I do to help you?”
5. Paul understood…he was a sinner like you
a. (I Tim 1:15)—“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”
b. Paul knew the pain of sin
c. If Paul could make it, anybody could
1. That’s my kind of example
6. The Bible is filled with examples
a. Hebrews 12:1—“Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…”
b. Chapter 11 lists the “cloud of witnesses”
c. I love to read biographies
7. The high calling of leadership
a. Knowing that some of you are patterning your life after mine
b. Who is using you as a pattern?
b. People guide by their counsel
1. Helping others discern God’s will for their life
a. Comes from years of experience
b. Have already made a lot of potential mistakes myself
2. When seeking God’s will for your life…
a. Go to people who can walk the walk and not just talk the talk
b. Avoid those who flaunt their piety
c. Find an old sinner who has come through the fire
3. Find people who have been beat up a few times
a. Can put it in a practical context
b. Young pastor named Todd with answers from a textbook
4. Seek out more than one person
5. Seek out people who have “witnessed” God at work
a. Witnesses have been there and seen it
2. Through the Bible
a. God gave us a Book of Directions
1. None other like it
2. Covers 90% of life’s questions
b. Not alone in the dark
1. Mammoth Caves
a. When the lights went out
b. Afraid to move
2. Psalm 119:105— “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
c. Answers questions like
1. What type of person should I date or marry
2. How to raise kids
3. How to handle your money
4. Even how to farm
5. How to handle worry and stress
6. How to do well at your job
d. Most important book you’ll ever read
1. It is literally the revealed word of God
2. Failure to study it is foolish
e. If a person’s counsel to you is inconsistent with the Bible?
1. Playing Rook
a. The “trump card”
2. God’s word trumps the counsel of men
a. That includes your pastor
3. But don’t force the Bible to say what you want to hear
a. Stretching singular verses out of context
f. But what if the Bible doesn’t address the specifics and you get mixed answers from your wise counselors?
1. Happens quite often
2. The choice is yours to make
3. But you don’t have clear direction
4. That’s where the third leg of the stool comes in
3. Through the Holy Spirit
a. When the questions are not “black or white”
1. Judgment calls
2. Choice between two good jobs
3. When you search for answers
4. When you don’t know how to pray
b. The guiding of the Holy Spirit
1. Inside of you
2. Directs you
c. To help you understand and apply the Bible
1. Dr. Harry Ironsides
I remember years ago, while my dear mother was still living, I went home to visit the family, and found there a man of God from the north of Ireland. I was a young Christian at the time, engaged in gospel work. He was a much older man, an invalid, dying of what we then called “quick consumption.” He had come out to Southern California, hoping climatic conditions would be of some help to him. But it was evident that he was too far gone to be recovered to health again. He lived, by his own desire, in a small tent out under the olive trees a short distance away from our home. I went out to see him there. I can remember how my heart was touched as I looked down upon his thin worn face upon which I could see the peace of Heaven clearly manifested. His name was Andrew Frazer. He could barely speak above a whisper, for his lungs were almost gone, but I can recall yet how, after a few words of introduction, he said to me, “Young man, you are trying to preach Christ; are you not?” I replied, “Yes, I am.” “Well,” he whispered, “sit down a little, and let us talk together about the Word of God.” He opened his well-worn Bible, and until his strength was gone, simple, sweetly, and earnestly he opened up truth after truth as he turned from one passage to another, in a way that my own spirit had never entered into them. Before I realized it, tears were running down my face, and I asked, “Where did you get these things? Could you tell me where I could find a book that would open them up to me? Did you learn these things in some seminary or college?” I shall never forget his answer. “My dear young man, I learned these things on my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland. There with my open Bible before me, I used to kneel for hours at a time, and ask the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my heart, and He taught me more on my knees on that mud floor than I ever could have learned in all the seminaries or colleges in the world.” It was not many weeks after this that he was absent from the body and present with the Lord, but the memory of that visit has always remained with me and is a most precious recollection.
d. The Holy Spirit is a gift from Jesus
1. Knew we’d need direction
e. O.T. picture of Holy Spirit—the Cloud or Pillar
f. Escape from Egypt
1. Ten plagues (Ex 12)
2. The pillar of cloud / fire
g. Exodus 13:20-22
“After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. (21) By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. (22) Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
C. The Cloud and the Holy Spirit
1. Both are Gifts
a. Didn’t seek the cloud
1. A surprise gift from god
b. Like the Holy Spirit
1. John 14:16 — “Jesus prayed the Father would send the Comforter”
c. Given to each Christian at the moment of salvation
2. Both are Guards
a. Pharaoh’s pursuit of Israel
1. Fear!
b. The cloud moved to protect
1. Exodus 14:19-20 “Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, (20) coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.”
c. The Holy Spirit is watching your back
1. Satan’s attempts
2. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”
3. Both are Guides
a. Nehemiah 9:12 “By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.”
b. Crossing the desert
1. Forty years of wandering
2. How did they know when and where to go?
3. Exodus 40:34-38 “Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (35) Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (36) In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; (37) But if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. (38) So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels.”
4. Must have been frustrating at times
5. James M. Boice
Now we must imagine how it would be when the cloud moved forward and how weary the people would have become of following it. We read in the final verses of Exodus, “When the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys; but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up” (Ex. 40:36,37). Sometimes it moved often, at other times not at all. We may imagine a family coming to a stop under the cloud’s guidance in the middle of a hot afternoon and immediately beginning to unpack their baggage. They take down their bedding and set up their tent. And then, no sooner has it all been arranged, than someone cries out, “The cloud is moving.” And so they repack their baggage and start to go on again. One hour later the cloud stops. They say, “We’ll just leave our things packed this time and sleep on the ground.” Well, they do. And the cloud stays that night and all the next day and all that week. And as they are going into the second week the family says, “Well, we might as well get it over with.” They unpack. And immediately the cloud begins to move again.
The people must have hated the moving of the cloud by which God guided them. But no matter how much they hated the cloud they still had to follow its guidance. If someone had said, “I don’t care if the cloud is moving, I’m going to stay right here,” the cloud would have gone on, and he would have died in the heat of the desert, or he would have frozen at night. They hated God’s leading. But by this means God was molding a nation of rabble, of slaves, into a disciplined force that would one day be able to conquer the land of Canaan. And He was teaching them absolute obedience.
c. Allowing the Holy Spirit to lead you
1. He moves us one day at a time
a. One step at a time
b. Patience
c. Trust
2. He uses every day circumstances
a. Ordinary events to move us
3. It’s dangerous to wander far from His protection
4. Don’t get too comfortable
a. Be ready to move
b. Christian life is constant movement
c. “Just got comfortable at the church”
d. Comfortable with your job
5. Don’t try to push Him
a. Can’t push a cloud
b. Or the Holy Spirit
6. The key is “obedience”
a. Follow His cloud
b. Action is essential
7. Blessings are missed by failing to follow
a. Trying to take them to a better place
1. Often through the wilderness
b. He wants what is best for you
IV. Summary
A. The Search for God’s will
1. Search the Bible
2. Search the Holy Spirit
a. Prayer
b. Bible reading
c. Obedience
d. Follow
3. Search the lives of others
a. Follow Godly leaders
b. Imitate our lives
c. If life isn’t worth imitating, then not qualified to lead
B. Be ready to move
1. The cloud
2. David Wilkerson
David Wilkerson, the author of The Cross and the Switchblade and a minister who has been greatly blessed in a unique ministry to teenagers in New York City, tells in the opening chapter of his book how he was led in new paths in his ministry. He had been a Pentecostal preacher in central Pennsylvania, and by his personal standards he was doing quite well. The church had grown. There were several new buildings. And yet he was discontented. One day he decided to spend the late evening hours praying instead of watching television. He sold the television set after much hesitation and began to spend time with the Lord. He did this for some time. Eventually, out of these times of prayer he was led to begin his work helping the youth caught up in drug addiction and delinquency in Manhattan. God’s will for David Wilkerson meant leading a country preacher into the heart and the heartbreak of the city.
3. What is He asking you to do?
4. Maybe you need to ask Him
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