As we begin to look at how we can know and do the will of God, we need to first find out what the Bible means when it talks about God's Will. We discuss what John Piper calls God's Will of Decree and God's Will of Command, to explore the very different senses in which the will of God is talked about in the Bible. The interplay between the sovereignty of God and the free will of humanity is something that we can only grasp imperfectly, yet having an understanding of the two wills of God helps us to recognise this tension and guides our response.
The Manuscript:
Knowing God’s Will Pt 1
What is God’s Will?
What is God’s Will?
Introduction
We make hundreds of decisions every day. We decide whether to get up or sleep a little longer. We decide what to wear, what to eat for breakfast and we keep rolling through the day. Some decisions are not even made consciously – we don’t usually decide to be grumpy or happy. If you are a creature of habit you might not even consciously decide what you will wear or what you will eat – you just do what you do.
But then there are some decisions which require a lot of thought and sometimes cause a lot of stress. These are the big decisions like: “Should I ask this lady to marry me?”, “How can I ask her so she will say ‘Yes’?”, “What should I study?”, “Where should we live?”, “What sort of work should I do?”, ‘What church should we join?”, “How much should we borrow?”, “What crop should I put in this year?”, “What should I do about the frost-damaged crop?”
How do we make sure that our decisions – big and small, conscious or unconscious – are in line with what God wants for us? How do we know and do God’s will?
We talked recently about the Christian life as being all about following Jesus instead of turning aside because of our own ungodly desires or because of the pressures that this World and the ruler of this world brings to bear on us. But how do we know clearly what it is that Jesus wants us to do and where He wants us to go? We’re going to spend a few weeks looking at this important subject – knowing and doing the will of God.
We’re going to start off today by defining what it is that we are talking about when we talk about the will of God. One of the biggest problems that many Christians have in knowing and doing the will of God is that we have a fuzzy understanding of what the term actually means. So what does the Bible mean when it talks about God’s will?
You need to understand that when the Bible talks about God’s will it is generally talking about one of the two different types of God’s will. If you don’t recognise these 2 different types then you are going to get very confused as you try and get a clear understanding of what the Bible is saying, because it will always be contradicting itself. Bible scholars use a variety of terms to describe these two different aspects of God’s will. I’m going to borrow the terms used by John Piper, which I think are really helpful for us.
1. God’s Will of Decree
God’s Will of Decree is simply this: everything that happens, happens because God has willed it. God’s will of decree cannot be stopped or compromised, it will come to pass.
If you are like most people, that sentence is one of the worst things you have ever heard. We all have different wounds that this life has inflicted upon us, and we tend to hold other people, Satan or the notion of a fallen world responsible for our pain. It’s not easy to hear that God decrees everything that comes to pass. In my case it means that my little brother died a slow and cruel death because God chose it to be so. What sort of God is that? It’s this sort of thinking that turns people away from God.
So let’s see if this is really what the Bible says…
Ephesians 1:11
“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will”
Romans 8:28-39
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So if God works out all things in conformity with His will, does this mean that God wills sin to occur? Surely evil must be included in “all things”?
1 Peter 3:17
17 It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 4:19
19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Peter knows that it may well be in God’s plan for you to suffer for doing the right thing! Could it really be God’s will for the innocent to suffer?
Let’s turn to Acts 2:22-24
22 “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Now let’s go back to Garden of Gethsemane in the hours before this event takes place.
Matthew 26:38-39
38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
God could have chosen to shelter Christ’s back from the cruel barbs of the whips. He could have blunted the thorns of Jesus’ mock crown. Even if Jesus had to die God the Father could have made it easier on Him. But He didn’t.
We look around our world today and see children conscripted into armies and forced to commit atrocities against their own families. We see drug dealers and pimps profiting from their trade in human misery. We see terrible accidents and terrible crimes. How could the Bible say that God is sovereign over all this? Yet it does, time and time and time again. We are going to address this paradox between God’s Will of Decree and His character of love and purity a little bit later. Before we are ready to do that we need to understand the second type of will that the Bible talks about in relation to God.
God’s Will of Command
God’s Will of Command is simply what God wants people to do. It’s what He has commanded us to do. The Bible is full of these commands. For example, God does not want anyone to perish but instead He commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). But guess what? Some people don’t!
Another example…
1 Thessalonians 4:3-7
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
So here’s the paradox: God is sovereign over everything, yet He commands things which don’t always happen. He forbids things that He brings about. It makes no sense! Yet the Bible teaches both God’s Will of Decree and God’s Will of Command.
Now I am someone who doesn’t like these sorts of inconsistencies, and so I look for ways of getting to the bottom of them so everything is nicely worked out and makes sense. I have some ideas on how this all fits together, but the Bible doesn’t actually try to explain that and so today neither will I.
What the Bible says is quite simple: don’t try figure out God’s Will of Decree. Don’t consult spirits or stars or any of that sort of thing to try work out what is going to happen. Leave that to God. Your task is to humble yourself so that you can trust Him. Sometimes it makes no sense to us whatsoever, and sometimes by His grace God reveals to us part of His plan and shows us why things have happened the way they have. We just need to trust.
The second thing we need to do is obey. God has made His Will of Command clear to us, we need to submit our will to His. We need to obey. As the old hymn says “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey”.
Close: Purpose Driven Life reading (p 94).
(note: I played a short clip from a sermon by John Piper as he explained why we need these 2 wills of God, and how knowing them sustains us through the tough stuff of life. Click here to read the full sermon. The section we looked at is titled "The Preciousness of these Truths".)
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