Bob Munford tells of a certain Italian harbor that can be reached only by sailing up a narrow channel between dangerous rocks and shoals. Over the years, many ships have wrecked, and navigation is hazardous. To guide the ships safely into port, three lights have been mounted in the harbor on three huge poles. When the three lights are perfectly lined up and seen as one, the ship can safely proceed up the narrow channel. If the pilot sees two or three lights, he knows he’s off course and in danger.
Mumford goes on to say that God has also provided three beacons to guide us. The same rules of navigation apply – the three lights must be lined up before it is safe for us to proceed. The three harbor lights of guidance are 1. The Word of God (objective standard) 2. The Holy Spirit (subjective witness) 3. Circumstances (divine providence)
Together, notes Mumford, they assure us that the directions we’ve received are from God and will lead us safely along His way.
20 years ago, on the last Sunday of the 1970’s, I stood before the congregation of the church where, nearly 14 years earlier, I was saved and preached my first sermon. I was a senior in college and I was just a week past my 22nd birthday.
The title of that sermon was, “What does it mean to do the Will of God?” and, while the text of that sermon was different than this one, I was drawn to think about that sermon because of the desire that I have had over the past twenty years ago to understand and experience God’s will.
20 years ago we were wrestling with high inflation, and a hostage situation in Iran that was now in its second month.
The job market was weak and my fellow college seniors and I were wondering where the jobs were.
I had some options – the military, graduate school, government service, business, education. But, God’s will was something different.
I also thought about which of the many fine young women I had dated would be honored to be my wife. But, God’s will, and, I supposed theirs as well, was something else.
As the years have passed, I still have been interested in understanding and experiencing God’s will, never dreaming that I would be standing in this place at this point in my life.
Using Mumford’s three harbor lights as a guide and outline, I want to have us think about why and how these three together help us discern, individually and corporately, God’s will.
Three passages of scripture will serve as the Biblical basis for understanding these three important parts of discerning God’s will.
The first passage is 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing that God wants us to do.”
It is said of Alexander White, a preacher of great renown from another generation, that when he was to old to enter the pulpit, he still arose every morning to prepare a sermon, even though he never preached them. He did so until the day he died.
We do not have to be a preacher to understand the value of Bible study. God has given to us a book of great importance.
The Bible contains absolutely everything that we need to clearly understand God’s will in this time and place. Nothing else available to us will provide us with such clear directions.
The 2 Timothy passage indicates why the Bible helps us discern and experience God’s will. First of all, God inspired it. The Bible is a book with a divine origin. It has stood the tests of time and attempted obliteration of those opposed to it. Because it is inspired by God, it is therefore a primary way to understand God and his purposes for humankind.
Second, it is God’s way of preparing us to do what is right – a key part of God’s will. Not only does the Bible reveal who God is and what His purposes are, but it also reveals what we are to do and how we are to live in light of God’s plans and purposes.
But, how to we read God’s word in order to understand and experience His will?
Martin Luther wrote, “I study my Bible like I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest may fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig. Then I look under every leaf. I search the Bible as a whole like shaking the whole tree. Then I shake every limb – study book after book. Then I shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters. Then I shake every twig, or a careful study of the paragraphs and sentences and words and their meanings.”
So what? You may ask. Who has the time today for such a deep study?
If we want to line up the lights and avoid unnecessary difficulties in life, then we must become students of scripture.
God w-a-n-t-s u-s t-o u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d H-I-s w-o-r-d. God wants us to not be afraid of the Bible, nor give up studying it as we make our first frustrating attempts to study it.
Why would God not want us to understand his word? Why would He have gone to great lengths of time to have it written down? Why would He have allowed so many persons to give their lives in order to spread it throughout the world, if He did not want us to understand it and apply it?
If we are going to line up on the first ‘beacon’ then we must become people of the Word. And we become people of the Word, when we make the decision to study the Bible, daily and prayerfully with God’s assistance.
What a great New Year’s resolution!
Sometime back the Associated Press carried this dispatch: “Glasgow, KY – Leslie Puckett, after struggling to start his car, lifted the hood and discovered that someone had stolen the motor.”
If we call the Bible, the owner’s manual for life, the Holy Spirit, is the power under the hood.
When was the last time you checked under the hood?
In the hours prior to the crucifixion, Jesus tells the disciples of the coming of the Holy Spirit who will help them as they fulfill the great commission.
We read Jesus’ statements about the Holy Spirit in John 16:8-11. ‘And when He (the Holy Spirit) comes, he will convince the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgement. The world’s sin is unbelief in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgement will come because the prince of this world has already been judged.’
God’s will is made more understandable when the authority of the word is combined with the experience of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is whom God uses to accomplish His will.
Why is the Holy Spirit necessary in understanding and experiencing God’s will? Because in God’s plan, the Holy Spirit does the inner work necessary to both influence us toward and transform us into persons of God.
Sometimes I wonder if, in our modern ways, we have forgotten the Holy Spirit? I wonder if we have attempted to get people to change without praying for the Holy Spirit to do His work.
It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us after we have cheated on a test, or lied to our spouse, or talked about our boss behind his/her back. It is the Holy Spirit who helps us realize that we are weak, that we are fallen, that we are flawed, and that only He, in cooperation with God the Father and God the Son, can make the changes in our lives that we cannot make.
It is the Holy Spirit we grieve when we fail to confess our sins and admit our wrongs to God.
The Holy Spirit is God’s direct contact with us as we walk with God in a flawed and fallen world.
How does the Holy Spirit work? I don’t know.
All that I know is that He does work and when He does, either we cooperate with Him, or we don’t and there are consequences to both choices.
But, if we are going to understand and experience God’s will for our lives, then we must align ourselves with the Holy Spirit by asking Him to cleanse us and transform us into the person, and people, of God.
In Acts 16 Paul, at the beginning of his second missionary journey, encounters the will of God through circumstances. Beginning with verse 9 we read: “That night Paul had a vision. He saw a man from Macedonia in northern Greece, pleading with him, “Come over here and help us.” So we decided to leave for Macedonia at once, for we could only conclude that God was calling us to preach the Good News there.”
Paul and his companion Silas were obedient to God because as we review verses 6 through 8, God’s spirit kept them from going in the direction they had mapped out and directed them into Greece and ultimately, as we read in verse 12, to Phillipi, a major city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We stayed there several days.’ Notes the text.
What happened there? They met Lydia, ‘a merchant of expensive purple cloth. She was also a worshipper of God.’ A church was planted.
But, Paul and Silas were also beaten and jailed. But, God was in that as well. For we read in verses 29 and 30, that the jailer, in the aftermath of an earthquake that shook the jail cell doors open, calls for lights and ran to the dungeon cell where Paul and Silas were and cried out to them, “What must I do to be saved?” A man was brought to God!
In the New Testament, there is a book of the Bible called “Philippians.” It was written by Paul to the church, whose members included a seller of purple and a jailer, who met God because Paul had lined up the third light of guidance – circumstances with the first two.
And in that book we read these words, “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me strength.”
Paul did not learn that overnight. He learned it by lining up the lights of scripture, the Holy Spirit, and circumstances in the day in and day out of life.
Why does God use circumstances to help us experience and understand His will? In Paul’s situation, it was to expand His kingdom. Come to think about it, I think that is the only reason God uses circumstances – to expand His kingdom through the fulfillment of His will.
How does God use circumstances to help us experience and understand His will? In James chapter 1, we read about endurance and the testing of one’s faith. Verse three says, “For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”
None of us ever imagined a month ago that we would be in this building . . . again.
But, God is still God and we are His people no matter where we worship!
We will be embarking on a major undertaking this year – we dare not see three lights, or even two, we need to see one light – like the wise men did – and in doing so we are going to experience God in new ways that we have no idea of right now.
But, it will take three things – patience, trust, and faith – in ourselves, in one another, and in God.
Let the journey begin!
