Knowing And Doing God's Will

Knowing And Doing The Will Of God

Exodus 14:15-18

I have been a pastor long enough to know that if I were to ask the question, “do you want to know God’s will for your life”, you would all respond in the affirmative. In a sense, every Christian does want to know the will of God, but the problem is that not all want to do His will.

I am sure the majority of you have prayed and asked the Lord to show you His will for your life. This is certainly an admirable prayer to pray, but we cannot ask what God’s will is and decide to obey only if we agree with it. On the contrary, when God reveals His will and plan for our lives, we must respond in full obedience.

We have the tremendous privilege to converse with our Savior. It cannot be overstated just how important prayer is in the life of a Christian. The Apostle Paul exhorted the Christians at Thessalonica to “pray without ceasing”. This admonition applies to us as well. Though we are to live in a constant spirit of prayer, we cannot spend every moment gazing into the clouds. Through the scriptures it is apparent that each of us has a special and specific calling. Our time on earth is short and there is much work for us to do concerning the Kingdom of God. Knowing this, we must make it a priority to spend much time in prayer.

We should consistently seek God concerning His will for our lives. When He graciously reveals His will to us, then we must obediently set out to accomplish the task that He assigns. In our selected text, the Children of Israel have been released from the strong hand of Pharaoh. God has delivered them from 400 years of slavery and oppression in Egypt. They have begun a new journey of hope and great expectation. But after traveling for a while they find themselves in a discouraging situation. Their enemies are approaching, and it seems that they are trapped. In front of them is the Red Sea, to the left is a mountain, to the right, another mountain and behind them is Pharaoh & the Egyptian army.

Their leader, Moses, sought the Lord for guidance and instruction. The Lord informs Moses that it is time for action. Moses responded accordingly and one of the greatest miracles in the history of the world was on the horizon. As we examine the events in the lives of Moses & the people of Israel, there is much that we can learn about how we should respond when our prayer is over, and the Lord instructs us to move forward for Him.

- I would like to review this familiar Biblical narrative and preach on the subject "Knowing and Doing The Will Of God.

- First of all, we see that:

I. IN ORDER TO DO GOD'S WILL, WE MUST LISTEN

v15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.

The details of Moses' prayer is not recorded in this passage, but it is clear that he lifted up his heart to God. The Lord didn't rebuke His servant for praying, but He did make it clear that the prayer had been heard and now it was time to move.

The privilege of prayer is simply amazing. To know that we have direct, unhindered access to God is truly wonderful. But even greater is the promise that our Lord will not only hear, but He will answer our prayers. Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.”.

Perhaps you have been praying for God to reveal His will for your life. If so, it is not enough to ask what His will is, you must be willing to listen and obey His will when He responds. There are many times when God does not answer this sort of prayer the way that we would like. Often God’s will is the exact opposite of what we would choose for ourselves.

Such a scenario had played out earlier in Moses’ life. When God initially called him, Moses was very reluctant. He made it very clear that he did not want to do what Yahweh had called him to do. He made excuses and encouraged the Lord to find someone else to serve in that capacity. Eventually Moses complied and God used him to confront Pharoh and lead Israel out of Egypt. Soon after this, the people of Israel began to grumble and complain, so much to that Moses wanted to quit. Things even got so bad at one point that Moses asked God to kill him!