God's Will: Faith (part 3, making decisions)

God’s Will: Faith (part 3: decision making)

God’s will is faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That much is certain and undeniable and more then that it is foundational. You cannot expect to know God’s will much less do God’s will if you are not living by faith in the work of Jesus Christ. You cannot start with this post if you really are interested in doing God’s will, for God’s will is much larger than your life. The questions of now, the questions of what should I pursue in life, what job, what spouse, what location, when, how and all the rest of the questions that are grounded in the finite, are secondary questions. The answers to those questions are only valid if you are living by faith in Jesus Christ. And more then that, those questions are only valid if you are not just wanting to know the answer but are truly surrendered to doing the answer. We cannot seek the will of God apart from a genuine desire to do the will of God, for surely, to seek without the willingness to complete, is futility (James 1:5-8).

In preparing to seek the immediate answers of today in God you must be prepared to do them. Again, I wrote of suffering because so often God’s will includes suffering and we have such an aversion to suffering that more often then not we opt out of God’s will for our lives because of the potential of suffering. If you have not grappled with the issue of suffering, if you are not prepared to follow Christ even to pain and possibly death then you are not prepared to follow Christ at all (Luke 14:25-33). Christ demands the whole life, not part or most. He who puts his hand to the work of the Lord but looks back is not worthy of the Lord (Luke 9:62). We must seek the will of the Lord and even know the will of the Lord (Eph 5:17) but more then that we must being doing the will of the Lord and that begins with faith in Jesus as the all satisfying and all sufficient Savior.

Apart from faith in Jesus it is impossible to do the will of God, even doing the revealed will of God, apart from faith, is sin. It is impossible to please God without faith (Heb 11:6). This is the weakness of the law: that by our sin we cannot truly keep even one precept for the wickedness of our very being permeates even the greatest and best work of man (Gal 3:21-24; Rom 7:1-25). We must understand this. Faith is the fulfillment of God’s law and will. When the scriptures speak of, “there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seek after God…there is none who does good, no, not one (Rom 3:10-12),” we must understand that the reason this is so is because no man is naturally (by birth) living by faith or able to keep the whole law. Man is corrupted to the root of his being. Do you believe this? Do you know your own total and complete wickedness? Do you grasp that even in your best moments sin has so permeated you that your best work is full of sin? You must get this. To the extent that we deny this sinfulness of ourselves is the extent that we will truly rely upon Christ. For if we are not quite fallen completely, then we are not completely in need of a Savior. Instead of resting all our hope upon Christ we will rest just a little in ourselves. We must see that we are spiritually bankrupt in everyway before God, there is nothing we can do ever to pay back our dept. The wages of sin that we owe, we all owe, is death, not temporary and once, but death eternal (Rom 6:23).

When the bible speaks of eternal life in knowing Christ (John 17:3) it is not only speaking of duration, in fact, duration is the last thing that it is speaking of for all will continue on for eternity. We are spiritual beings and our spirits will never cease to exist, so a promise of eternal life only in duration would be pointless. For what we must understand, and the point that I am getting at, is that even the damned lived forever. Those who reject God and His Savior Jesus Christ, will also receive eternal life in duration. The bible in speaking of eternal life is not speaking of duration but of quality or of content, neither word seems adequate for what they describe are beyond mere words. The joys and glories of life with Christ for eternity are void of descriptive words. The bible speaks of streets of gold, a great city decorated in fine gems and jewels, but what are those things, they hold no eternal glory, they are but descriptions of something for greater and more breath taking. For the glory of heaven, the reason heaven is heaven is not the material reward; heaven is heaven because Jesus is there. It is the glory of Christ that makes heaven glorious. We will spend and eternity of eternities before Him and never cease to marvel at the richness of His grace. Words fail to adequately express the glory of what is to come.

So also, with eternal death, it is not about duration but the content of that eternity. Life with Christ is glory for eternity, life separated from Christ, condemned to an eternal suffering in hell, it is everything opposite of glory. The descriptive of hell given in the bible is only meant to illustrate the horrors for those who refuse to submit to their Creator and Savior. Fire, darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the worm that never dies, are not literal things, though hell is a literal place, an eternal place. Those who reject their Creator and His Savior do not cease to exist, they are not annialated or moved to purgatory to work off their sinful deeds, no, they are condemned to what can only be called eternal death.

Some questions do beg to be asked when speaking of hell for it is a very hard thing. The first question is, “why for eternity?” Those condemned to hell will never want the other option. Those in hell are not realizing their error and repenting, no, there is nothing good in hell, not consideration or remorse and repentance. Their pain and agony for their sins does not lead to genuine repentance but to a greater and ongoing hardening. Those is hell do not long for God but hate Him even more, even in seeing His perfect justice and righteousness, even in now seeing the truth and knowing their error, they are not broken in a genuine repentance but only aggravated in their sin. We don’t think this of people because as was said above, we just don’t think that we are quite that wicked. But we are. Any good we see in man is only by God’s grace and mercy, yet the wickedness of man takes that grace and mercy and is unthankful and denies the very grace that made any good possible.

The second question is, “what makes hell, hell?” Now, my answer to this is not a dividing point but something that I do hold as a conviction, though surely disagreement is open. Hell is hell because God is there. It is His very presence in the lives of the wicked and damned that makes hell so hellish. God is everywhere, there is no where that He is not, hell is not the exception. God is omnipresent. Hell without God would almost be giving the unrepentant exactly what they wanted, God’s absence. We struggle because of the cartoons picturing Satan with a red tail and pitch fork poking people. This is not the case. Satan does not rule hell, he is as much a prisoner there as are those who deny their God (Rev 20:10). Hell is a real place created by God, ruled by God and for God’s glory (Col 1:15-16). This is hard for us and we wonder how it is glorifying to God. We do not understand (nor would I expect any to understand) nor see but we will. Hell magnify’s God’s perfect righteous judgment against sin, hell glorifies God wrath and God’s holiness, and hell glorifies God’s justice. Perhaps also hell glorifies God’s mercy and grace, for by His amazing grace and rich mercy He has secured a way for escape. Surely those in heaven are aware of hell and it only tends to their more glorying in God’s love, grace and mercy and kindness given them in Jesus Christ. Hell is real. Wrestle with this. Hell is avoidable. Receive this. Jesus paid for sin on the cross, and by faith we receive His sacrifice on our behalf. Believe and be saved from the wrath to come.

In the light of the eternal that is rushing upon us all at every moment it certainly does put the immediate questions of job and spouse and location into perspective. Faith is the first and essential to knowing and doing God’s will today. Even in the revealed will of God, things like prayer, bible study, evangelism, mission, tithing, brotherly love and all the rest of God’s precepts for man are only acceptable in faith. Paul wrote that he lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him (Gal 2:20) and we are told the same thing, that we must live by faith to be just before God (Rom 1:17), to be accepted and to make our lives acceptable we must live by faith (Gal 3:1-13). Prayer is acceptable to God by faith. Bible study by faith. Tithing and the rest; faith makes them all acceptable to God. The Pharisees practiced all these even in greater measure and obedience then we, yet they were wicked and full of evil, being void of faith, trusting only in themselves. Do not be a Pharisee but with the absence of faith you can not be but a Pharisee, one that trusts in self and not Christ and thinks that they have something to offer God (Matt 23:1-39).

Faith works itself out in our lives through faithfulness. Sin permeates everything through our sinfulness, in the same way faith must permeate everything through faithfulness. Faithfulness is the outworking of faith. The gospel calls us to Christ not once in a lifetime but to a lifetime of Christ. This I call faithfulness. It is the ongoing work of us pursuing Christ by faith and repentance. We live by faith, not by sight, not by our understanding, but by a reliance upon God in the gospel as revealed in His word, the bible.

What does it mean to live by faith? I think that we tend to define living by faith to narrowly, thinking that this is referring only to the immediate transition from death to life, the one single act of being born again. Faith is not the means of new birth only. Faith is not the one time act by which we are made righteous and just before God, but faith is the ongoing continual posture of a true Christian. It is by faith that we live every moment of every day and to the extent that we don’t live by faith every moment of everyday, is the extent that repentance will be in our life. Which means that repentance is the other posture of a true Christian. In fact, if we understand faith and repentance as the bible teaches you cannot have one without the other. So when you read “faith,” hear also repent.

We live by faith by trusting, first: Christ and His work on the cross as the means by which we are accepted and made right with God, changing our relationship from that of enemy to that of son and heir, from one being under the curse to one being under the promise and from one treasuring up God’s wrath to one treasuring up God’s blessing and goodness. First, we trust Christ, and continually trust Christ for a lifetime. Secondly, we trust all that Christ reveals of Himself in His word. We trust that He is good and kind and righteous and sovereign. We trust that He loves us and is for us, that everything really is under His hand for His glory and our good, the two being inseparable (what a glorious truth that is). We trust that He is all that He says He and that He will do all that He says He will do, here lies true joy, contentment, rest and hope. By those two things, trust in who Christ is and what Christ has done we are equipped to answer and decide every dilemma with confidence.

“What job should I take,” is never a question that we see asked in the bible. Rather what we see is that Christ promises us that if we trust Him and seek Him in faith, that He will guide our every step (Prov 3:5,6). We are to submit our plans to him (James 4:13-15) and then act in faith. God has told you that He will direct your steps, that He is for you, that He is sovereign, that He loves you enough to have died for you, and that now, even if you err, He will work it for good. Does God have a specific will for you, who you should marry, where you should go to school or work, if you should move; yes. Does He reveal it to you? Maybe. Maybe not. If you are living by faith, walking by faith, you are ready to make the decision. “But what if I mess up and go to the wrong place?” God is much bigger then your mistakes. You will not find a person in the bible other then Jesus that lived perfectly in accordance with God’s will. The Hebrews 11, “hall of fame,” is riddled with those that made tremendous mistakes in judgment and committed atrocious sins, yet, by faith, God was well pleased with them, enough so that He has set them before you as an example to follow.

What this so often comes down to is that we want to know God’s will because we don’t want a “hard” life and we think that if we mess up God will give us terrible consequences and chastise us for a lifetime. How perverse and askew this view of God is. Thinking of God like this is void of the gospel.

First, God promises what many would consider a “hard” life not the opposite. God does not promise long life, healthy life, financially prosperous life, not that He never gives those things, He does, but His word speaks of the “hard” things much more. For, “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution,” and “because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you.” If we love money we cannot love Jesus. If we seek to save our lives we will lose our lives. The gospel promises life to those who die to self. The call of the gospel is not to a life of ease and comfort and riches but to one of only continual death, “for Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” “Yet,” oh what a glorious “yet” that it is, “yet, in all these things we are more then conquerors through Him who loved us!” God promises the “good” life, His life. Look at the life of Christ and see the “good” life that will be yours by faith (John 15:18).

Secondly, this thinking of God is wrong because we still think of difficulty and suffering as being bad in and of themselves, that somehow only the wicked should struggle and only the wicked should have trial. But as we looked at in a previous post, this thinking is so wrong, so unbiblical. It was through suffering that Christ was perfected, surely what is good for Jesus is good for us (Heb 2:10). But we are not alone in this struggle with suffering. Psalm 73 records a mans bewilderment at the prosperity of the wicked and the continual grief of the righteous, till he saw the end of both (73:27,28).

Third this view of God is wrong because it is in denial of the gospel. This view of God does not accept that God is a Father towards us, always for our good, it does not believe that what Christ ascribes to His atonement is true. That somewhere in God He is still against us, opposed to us, that there is still wrath stored up. Yet, the gospel promises us that God is for us (Rom 8:31), that there is no condemnation left for those in Christ (Rom 8:1), that if while we were enemies He gave His life for us, how much more now that we are His children (Rom 5:10, 8:32), that nothing can stop His love (Rom 8:35). If we believe the gospel we are freed to live for God with no fear of wrath or condemnation. We need not fear ourselves as though we could thwart God, His grace is far greater than our sin (Rom 5:20). The gospel frees us to peace with God, in every situation. We can make mistakes for sure, there are good and bad decisions, but we must ascribe to God more power then we ascribe to our choices, even our mistakes. It is God that is sovereign, not our choices.

Lastly, the great problem in this view of God is that it ignores His sovereignty. This would fit under all three of the three above mistakes but it deserves its own spot. We cannot forget or undervalue the sovereignty of God. He can bring life from death, create everything from nothing. All of creation is at His use and, even more, for His use. Nothing is off limits from God, He is supernatural and above the natural in everyway. You see this in that water is only a substance for His bidding. He can make water stand on end. He can turn it to blood or to wine. He can make it rain or send a drought. He can calm waves or make water hard enough to stand upon. Let us look beyond what is seen to Him that is invisible and all powerful. Not to seem mystical or fantastical but nothing is just the way it is. God can cause the sun to stand still, to hide, to go back. Nature is at the beckon of God, so is man. There is nothing that God cannot do, and though we know not what God will do, we know that He is sovereign and for us. He has already overcome death and the grave. Do not fear but hope in your sovereign God.

Decisions are hard to make but they need not be. Decisions are sanctified by faith. Decisions fall under all the gospel promises, they are redeemed. We need fear no action of man, not even our own, if we will fear God in faith.

Now, to close this, yes, we need to pray about decisions, yes, we need to regard all that God’s word says about the choices before us, He has given precepts that we must follow and obey, but in the final analysis we must have faith and live by that faith. Faith is what is pleasing to God and so, even if you are attempting to do what is God’s will but doing it void of faith, it is in vain, and if you are attempting to do God’s will with faith there is nothing that you do that is in vain (I Cor 15:58). We are prone to stand still waiting for neon signs and writing on the wall, seldom is this an act of faith, usually it is an act of fear and unbelief, the gospel frees us to go and do, in faith.

I am hoping that I have not over simplified this. We want direct answer from God to all our questions not because we are really wanting to do right before Him but because we are afraid to trust Him beyond what we see. What we think of as faith, our desire for every answer in writing, is actually fear and unbelief. Faith trusts God even when, especially when it does not see Him, for hope that is seen is not hope (Rom 8:24). What made the faith of Abraham so wonderful was that it was so void of earthly hope, he hoped against hope and in hope believed (Rom 4:18). Faith should not be stagnant. God will (and you know this by faith) direct your steps. God will (and you know this by faith) work all things for your good. God will (and you know this by faith) never forsake you nor leave you. God will (and you know this by faith) always be for you in Christ Jesus. Now live by that faith.

Next we will consider the gospel as worldview, seeing the whole of creation and time and history through the lens of the gospel. That will be the planned end for this series (though it might take two posts) unless there is something else that you think I should clarify or extend or add. Thanks for reading.