God's Will

hello, today i did my QT on a John Piper sermon again =) let me share it with you here today~

So, how exactly do we know God's will?

I read "He Will Send His Angel Before You" by John Piper.

Genesis 24:1-9
Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, "Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac."

The servant asked him, "What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?"

"Make sure that you do not take my son back there," Abraham said. "The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there." So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.

How did Abraham know God's will so surely that he said God "will send his angel before you"? It wasn't like God had told him exactly what to do in this case, but rather only revealed His will directly several times in the past in Abraham's life. Pastor John says that it was because he could read the trajectories of God's Word. What are trajectories?

A trajectory of an object is the path that you know it will take based on some other things that you know about it. For example, if you throw a rotten egg at the dustbin, based on how hard you throw, the direction, the weight of the egg, etc. you can know what path the egg will take (which is, hopefully, a path ending in the dustbin). So knowing the trajectories of God's will is like this.. knowing some things He has said and promised, and then based on those things, it is possible to know some of what He wills in our lives.

So pastor John said that Abraham deduced 3 things based on his good knowledge and faith in God's promises and commands. They are:

1. Isaac Must Have a Wife
2. Isaac's Wife Must Not Be Taken from the Canaanites
3. Isaac Must Not Return to the City of Nahor

For #1, its cos Abraham knew God's promise to make his descendants numerous and a great nation. And he knew that Isaac was the promised son and not Ishmael, whom Abraham had gotten from his own methods.

For #2, God had previously told Abraham that 400 years later his descendants, the Israelites, will come back from Egypt and carry out God's judgement on the Canaanites - this meant that the Canaanites were not good people ==> not good to get a wife from there who may pull Isaac away from God right?

For #3, pastor John says "I believe the answer is that God had called Abraham out of his land and promised him and his descendants a new land. To go back could only mean unbelief in God's promise and power to fulfill it."

So, from these 3 indications, Abraham knew that his servant should go and take a wife for Isaac from his brother's household and bring her back......



What about us? how can we discern what God's will is nowadays? Won't it be great if we know for sure what God's will is for us in our daily lives? John Piper recommends that we become meditative students of the Bible. This means we dun just memorise or read the Bible or some Christian book like 10 - 30 mins per day.. it means that we ask questions like (the following passage is taken directly from the sermon):

"What's the point of this? Where does that lead to? Why did he say this? Where is he heading here? What does this imply? To ask those questions prayerfully is to meditate. If you are not spending much time in meditative study of God's Word, then probably doing God's will on earth is not the passion of your life. And if you ever ask the question, "What is God's will?" you probably get very confused.

Listen. Satan devotes himself 168 hours a week trying to deceive you and fill your mind with junk. He has seen to it that you are surrounded almost entirely by a Christ-less culture whose mood, and entertainment, and advertising, and recreation, and politics are shot through with lies about what you should feel and think and do. Do you think that in this atmosphere you can maintain a vigorous, powerful, free, renewed mind with a ten-minute glance at God's book once a day? The reason there are church people who are basically secular like everyone else except with a religious veneer is that they devote 99% of their time absorbing the trajectories of the world and 1% of their time absorbing the trajectories of the Word. If you want to bring forth the will of God in your life like a mother brings forth a child, you must marry the Bible. For some of you it is a stranger that you greet on the way to work but never have over for a relaxed evening of conversation, and seldom invite along to spend significant time with you on vacation. Do not, then, be surprised if you are ill-equipped to read the trajectories of God's will for your own life.

Summer is a time for experiments. May I suggest one? If you are discouraged and perplexed about God's will in some area of your life, plan in the next couple weeks to find a quiet place totally alone, and read the Bible meditatively for four hours interspersed only by prayer. Here's what will happen. For some of you the clouds of confusion will lift, and the trajectory of God's will shall be perfectly clear. For others the precise decision won't come that quickly, but you will experience a wonderful purifying and stabilizing of your mind." (Emphasis added)

Thats exactly what I need to do. During the Church Camp sharing sessions, I shared that I needed extended times of prayer to discern God's will for me in making big decisions I'm currently faced with. Now that the Taiwan trip is over, its like my last chance to do it, before school starts and all the crazy stuff start coming in.

Pray for me that I will do this not just once but a few times.
If this sermon of John Piper touches you, you can read it at http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByTopic/92/354_He_Will_Send_His_Angel_Before_You/. But whether you read it or not, I hope that we can together find out God's will for our lives and walk closely with him. How else can we have assurance in life? But if we do see the trajectories of God's will and follow them,we can be confident of God's power and triumph in every detail of our lives.

"He Will Send His Angel Before You".