GOD’S WILL FOR YOU by George Crumbly
Humphrey UMC 02/25/2007AM
Matthew 12:46-50
I started off this week thinking about God’s will. Tuesday at 5:20pm the District Superintendant called me from Pine Bluff to see if I could drive to Pine Bluff and meet with the credentials board. I had to be there at 7:00pm. I made it and met with the board. I told them through out my ministry, starting in 1984, I have ALWAYS tried to be in the center of the Lord’s will. We’ve never ran when things got rough as a matter of fact I said years ago that man didn’t call me into the ministry, God did so when it is time to leave God will move us.
(A few years ago we have a bad experience in a church that finally after fighting Satan for 6 years we did walk away. It was stay and fight a never win battle and lose our health we did walk away. It was funny the day we left that night I had 3 preacher friends of mine call me to encourage me as they knew what we were going thru, 2 of the preachers told me that I stayed in that church 3 years longer than they would have. They hadn’t spoken to each other before calling me. I for the first time in my ministry maybe I hadn’t been in the center of God’s will)
Even though it was a terrible experience God did some great things thru 4 or 5 people (that left when we did). I could tell you testimony after testimony things God did. The church is closed now. However, to this day I believe that we have been in the center of God’s will for our life as well as ministry.
I believe that God has a plan for each of us today. When we are in His plan I believe then we are in His will….doing his will.
MATTHEW 12: verses 46-50
“While He was still speaking to the crowds, His mother and His brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to Him. Someone told him, look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you. But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, who is my mother, and who are my brothers? And pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother”.
Thursday I was listening to the radio, I was listening to the St. Jude-a-thon, I was listening to the parents of children that had passed away from cancer. It was so sad. I heard one mother who’s son has passed away, she said that she believed it was God’s will for them to go to St. Jude.
I began to think about David Ring’s sermon “why do bad things happen to good people?” What do you tell mother’s and father’s at a time like this? These folks were thankful for the time they got to spend with their children!!
I’ve heard people say that they were mad at God for something bad that happened in their family. Then there are folks living in sin claiming everything is good with them because they are so blessed.
MATTHEW 5: 45b
For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”.
(I pastored a single mother years ago that had a 3 month old son, he stayed with our family a lot as the mother was a hard worker providing for her son. One day he passed away from SIDS. It was terrible. It broke our churches heart, but as a pastor what do you tell the mom?)
We were in revival with evangelist’s from Kentucky, they told me there was nothing you could say or do that would help….
I heard a preacher when I first got in the church one time he pastored a very Godly lady. She served the Lord and raised a family always serving and trusting the Lord. This lady suffered months before she passed away and after the Lord took her home after the funeral one of her son’s was very bitter because of how she had suffered especially being so faithful to God for so many years. The pastor told the son he could not explain why she had to suffer, but one thing he knew is she did not suffer like Jesus suffered.
I’ve learned after nearly 25 years in the ministry that being in the center of God’s will isn’t always “hunky-dory”. God never told me anytime that it was going to be easy. He never asked me where I might like to serve. You see it’s not our way…it’s God’s way. It’s not our will but God’s will.
I will admit that after 22 years in the ministry moving around Arkansas and Alabama and winding up years 15-21 in a bad situation God has truly blessed my family with the church we pastor in Humphrey Arkansas. We were beat up, beat down physically, financially, emotionally as well as spiritually, at the point of never pasturing again…..When we kept our eyes focused on God and some folks from a Nazarene church in Collegeville Arkansas loved us and encouraged us. The time we were out of a pastorate was less that 2 months…..
All I can figure that what we went thru was part of being in the center of God’s will.
PSALM 40:8
“I delight to do your will, o my God: your law is within my heart”.
Although it may be tough. It may be discouraging and disheartening. It is so nice when we DELIGHT to do God’s will. Maybe that is why we stayed so long, we weren’t happy with the situation but we were DELIGHTING to be in God’s will. He has blessed us the past 3 years beyond measure!!!
PSALM 143:10
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path”.
Teach me God….no matter how old I get, no matter how long I have served you….no matter what I’ve gone thru…I want to always pray that I will have a teachable spirit!! (Prayer is essential to doing God’s will) Ask God what He wants you to do!! If you are serious & sincere, HE WILL TELL YOU!!!
MATTHEW 12:50 (Text)
“For whoever does the will of my father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother”.
DOING God’s will establishes a divine relationship. So many folks out there have “religion” and they are tickled to have it….We don’t preach religion, we preach a living, breathing, working RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ!!
MATTHEW 26:42
“Again he went away for the second time and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done”
Jesus knew what He was in store for his life and his death. While in the garden he prayed to the father, “Lord if there is any other way for this to go down & still accomplish what you want accomplished please let it happen”, (you’ll note that he didn’t get up and tell God that he’d be back tomorrow to see what he was going to do, in the same breath he continued his prayer), “but nevertheless my Lord LET YOUR WILL BE DONE”
In our service to God as laypeople, evangelist’s, pastors and even parishioners, what if we knew exactly how things in our life were going to be as well as end?
What if we knew? If I had known the way things were going to turn out throughout my ministry, do you think that might have influenced my decisions? If I knew I was going to be on a flight tomorrow that was going to crash, do you think I would get on the plane??
Paul was getting on a ship when before leaving an Angel appeared to Paul telling him the ship was going to be destroyed and everything aboard was going to be destroyed except for any human life. Wooooo……Paul knew this and he still got on the ship, why?? He was in the center of God’s will.
We are better off suffering as long as we are in his will than we are having it easy out of his will.
Bad things happen to us for one of two reasons:
1. It is beyond our control,
2. Because of the way we are living (without God)
One of the hardest things to pray at times is “God your will be done”. God doesn’t ask us our opinion, or how we prefer to do something. We have to accept his will. Bad things happen to good people every day.
IT STARTED IN THE BEGINNING, THE DAY SIN ENTERED INTO THE WORLD
