INTRODUCTION
- Life is filled with choices.
- In fact, your life is the culmination of every decision you’ve ever made, each choice layered upon the last.
- Where you are today is the sum total of choices that came before, and new crossroads will take you to where you will be tomorrow.
- There is so much potential for making bad choices.
- When you make decisions, how do you know your decision was right?
- What happens if you were to make a bad choice?
- Could any series of new choices undo that one wrong choice?
- Can we still find meaning and happiness even if we make the wrong choice?
- Can there be more than one right choice?
- Many of life’s decisions seem small and inconsequential.
- Which shoe do I put on first?
- Does the toilet paper unroll from the over or under position? (According to the 1891 patent for the toilet paper roll, the over position is correct.)
- We rarely put any thought into these decisions.
- We never pray about them.
- I don’t think we had a morning prayer like this, “Heavenly Father, please show me whether I should put on my left sock first or my right sock?”
- We just do it.
- Most of the time, we struggle over what we see as the big decisions in life.
- We go through a whole bunch for about a decade, beginning about 16 or 17.
- Which college? Which degree? Which career? Which job? Who to date? Who to marry? Where to live? Where to work?
- It slows down after that, but life remains a series of big choices—jobs, houses, children, and moving across the country for a new job.
- When I retire, do I move in with the kids?
- YES!
- In our mini-series, Beyond Belied, we have been diving into some concepts that can be difficult for Christiansto believe and embrace.
- We examined the concept of there being no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
- That may be one of the most difficult truths for us to embrace.
- Last week, we examined the concept that we can radically change when we are in Christ.
- In our passage this week, we examine the question of whether we can know God’s will.
- Why is the answer to the question concerning whether we can know God’s will for our lives important?
- When we are in Christ, I believe we want to know God’s will so we can follow it.
- When our life is patterned by following God’s will for our lives, our lives will be better, and our lives will reach their full potential.
- Let's turn to our passage.
1 Corinthians 2:16 (NET 2nd ed.)
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
SERMON
I. Can one know God’s will?
- This is an interesting question, so let's examine the context of the chapter so we can appreciate what Paul writes.
- In the first few verses of chapter two, Paul starts to explain where his message to them came from.
- He tells them that he did not come to them with fancy words.
- Paul stresses that what he gives them is not wisdom from the world that is perishing but rather the wisdom of God.
- In verse eight, he further states that the rulers of this age did not understand the wisdom of God, for if they did, they would not have killed Jesus.
- Paul says that the Spirit of God revealed to him what was to be taught.
- God revealed His will through the Spirit, who searches all things, even the more profound things of God.
- Then Paul moves to the example of humans.
- In verse 11, he asks who can know the things of man except the spirit (SMALL S) that is within him.
- With this thought being true, who could know what is going on in God's mind other than the Spirit of God?
- Look at verse 12
1 Corinthians 2:12 (NET 2nd ed.)
12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.
- Now look at verses 13-15
1 Corinthians 2:13–15 (NET 2nd ed.)
13 And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
14 The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is understood by no one.
- The context leans into what Paul shared in verse 16, our core verse today.
- The question verse 16 asks is, who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise Him?
- This is an insightful question.
- Humans have tried to tell God how to do things since Adam and Eve.
- God has revealed His will to us, but we rebel against it because we want to do what we want to do.
- We want to tell God what His will is.
- We can spend a lifetime trying to bend God’s will toward our will, and when things start to fall apart, we wonder why.
- Life would be so much better if we could gain, understand, and apply God’s will.
- If we can know God’s will for our lives, how far does it go?
- Does God care if you eat at one place versus another today?
- Does God care about what color socks you wear?
- We know many things concerning God’s general will for our lives.
- For instance, we know He wants us to be saved.
2 Peter 3:9 (NET 2nd ed.)
9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
- We know He does not want us involved in sexual immorality (1 Thessalonians 4:3), that He wants us to love one another, that He wants us to pray, and there are many other instances in the Bible where we learn of God’s general will for our lives.
- God’s Word gives us much insight into that.
- Concerning daily direction, Mark Moore writes:
- There is, therefore, little question as to God’s general will.
- Even so, for lots of daily decisions, as well as significant life decisions, we just don’t know what God wants us to do: how to counsel a friend, what job to take, or whom to marry.
- For example, Paul often didn’t know God’s will for where he should go (Acts 18:21; Romans 1:10; 15:32).
Moore, Mark E E. Core 52: A Fifteen-Minute Daily Guide to Build Your Bible IQ in a Year (p. 292). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- One of the ways we can gain insights into our lives past His general will is to ensure that we make decisions that will not violate His general will.
- It would not be wise for me to make any decision that violates God’s revealed will.
- How would you like to know what God is thinking?
- How would you like to know the deep thoughts of God?
- Only the Spirit of God knows the mind of God.
- Can we know the will of God?
- The answer is YES!
- Let’s turn to our passage again!
1 Corinthians 2:16 (NET 2nd ed.)
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
II. The key to unlocking knowing God’s will.
- Here is the key that unlocks knowing God’s will; the key is that in Christ, we have the mind of Christ!
1 Corinthians 2:11 (NET 2nd ed.)
11 For who among men knows the things of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So too, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
- In the specific context, Paul speaks of himself and those teaching with him.
- But remember the gift we receive when we are baptized into Christ, yes, the Holy Spirit!
- You can know the mind of God because you have the Holy Spirit within you who knows the mind of God!
- Our last observation will examine why that blessing does not seem to work for some.
- This blessing is one of the reasons for what we read in 1 Corinthians 1:18
1 Corinthians 1:18 (NET 2nd ed.)
18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
- The same thought is found in 1 Corinthians 2:14
1 Corinthians 2:14 (NET 2nd ed.)
14 The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
- I can share many instances where I tried to explain simple concepts of the Bible to those who are not in Christ, and they could not understand or saw it as nonsense.
- Before I was baptized into Christ, I struggled with grasping the Bible.
- We see yet another reason baptism is vital for us: we need the Holy Spirit.
- One way is the key to unlocking our ability to know the will of God.
- The Holy Spirit will guide us in accordance with God’s will.
- When we need to make decisions in life, the Holy Spirit will help us stay within God’s will for our lives.
- Without being clothed with Christ at baptism, you will not have the Holy Spirit within you; therefore, you will struggle with understanding God’s will, and you will not be able to carry His will out without the help of the Holy Spirit.
- This all sounds nice, but Jeff, I can see how an unbeliever would not have the mind of Christ.
- I have been a Christian for many years, yet I have no clue what God wants for me.
- This does not seem to be working for me.
- Why?
- Let’s read the passage one more time.
1 Corinthians 2:16 (NET 2nd ed.)
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
III. Roadblocks keeping one from knowing God’s will.
- What I will share with you will explain why one could be a Christian for a long time yet not be very far down the path of knowing God’s will.
- I want to share a couple of thoughts from your reading coming up this week.
- Mark Moore makes a couple of good points about a couple of the roadblocks to knowing God's will.
- First, this access isn’t open equally to every Christian.
- There are some who are saved who don’t have the capacity to think spiritually.
- They’re still practicing a lifestyle that doesn’t represent the priorities of God.
- The more entangled we are in habitual sin, the less we understand the Bible.
- Why?
- Because our pattern of reading Scripture allows us to justify our behavior.
- We’ve all done that.
- Greedy people ignore Jesus’s advice on money.
- When you’re in an inappropriate relationship, you skip over any passages on purity.
- When you’re a gossip, you avoid the book of Proverbs.
- Second, a problem that’s probably more common is that we just don’t know what the Scriptures teach.
- When we do not spend time in the Word, how are we going to have any clue as to what God's will is?
- If we do not know His Word, we will not know His will, and the Spirit will not be able to guide us in what we do not know!
- When you were a child, how did you get to know the will of your parents?
- Or, when you got married, how did you learn the will of your spouse?
- You spent time with them and got close to them.
- As the relationship deepens, the more you know what pleases your parents or your spouse.
- When we spend more time with Jesus, we will have a deeper understanding of what pleases Him.
- Once you know Jesus and His will, the trick becomes submission.
- Too many of us love the sin we are in so much that we are unwilling to submit to His will.
- We make excuses because we simply do not want what He wants for us.
- Then, when our lives and relationships crumble, we cry about it.
- Back in Romans 12:1 we read:
Romans 12:1 (NET 2nd ed.)
1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service.
- Presenting ourselves as living sacrifices will only happen if we know His will and are willing to submit to it.
CONCLUSION
- Let me close with this insightful thought from our reading this week.
- Let me say this as simply as I can: if you’re a Spirit-filled follower of Jesus Christ and you align your life with his priorities, the more Scripture you consume, the more potential you have to access the thoughts of God.
- Obedience to God’s commands results in the revelation of God’s will.
- If we want to discover more of God’s will, we must not only know God’s Word but also align our lives with His will inscribed in his Word.
- God has a plan for your life, but that plan will never happen if you do not follow His general plan.
- That is where it starts for those in Christ.
- For those not in Christ, your starting point is placing your faith in Jesus to save you, confessing Him as your Lord, repenting of your sins, and being baptized into Him!
