As believers, I think it is safe to say that all of us want to know the will of God. We all want to know what His desire and His intentions are in every area and in every situation. Many times we cry out to God asking Him to reveal His will to us, and we preface our prayers with “Lord, if it’s your will…”, and we pray this way because we do not know His will… we are unsure of what His will is. However it is very difficult; some would even say impossible, to act with boldness and confidence if we are not sure that God is backing us up. It’s very difficult to step out in faith if we are uncertain whether God’s will is for us to do that.
The good news is that He knows that we want to know – and He has not left us wondering what His will is. God has given us the perfect image and example of His will. And as we look at the living image of God – Jesus – we will know what the will of God is, and not be in doubt or uncertainty any longer. This is what we will be studying today.
In no area is the will of God doubted more often than the miraculous. The will of God is contested quite regularly in the area of divine healing, divine provision and divine protection. The reason for this is nothing mysterious… quite simply we often let our experiences define reality rather than the truth of God’s word. For example, if we pray for healing, and the healing doesn’t manifest, we begin to reason in our own mind why it hasn’t seemed to happen. We start to make excuses such as “it wasn’t the will of God”, and then we make more reasons to bolster our excuses… their was unconfessed sin, you didn’t pray the right way, or this or that, and we find ourselves re-writing the Word of God to match our experiences rather than allowing the Word of God to define our life.
So when it comes to the will of God, there really should be no guesswork involved for a believer. I know that statement is controversial and I know that it rubs some people the wrong way, but please hear what I am saying. When it comes to the will of God, we should already know what His will is, because He has written it down for us in His book, and furthermore He has given us His Son Jesus who has perfectly demonstrated the Father and His Will for us through His own life. We should never allow our natural knowledge and natural experiences change the eternal truth of God’s Word and His revealed will through Jesus Christ. Consider the following scripture verses:
“For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38)
“Jesus said to them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34)
“And he that sent me is with me: the Father has not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29)
Jesus’ entire purpose for coming down to earth was to do the will of the Father. He even goes as far as to say that His food, the very thing which satisfies Him and sustains Him, is to do His Father’s will. And as we see in John 8:29, Jesus always does the things that please His Father. Always; at all times. Never once did Jesus do His own will. Let that truth resonate with you. At every time, in every place, at every moment, Jesus was always doing the will of God the Father.
In Colossians 1:15, we learn that Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. If you want to know what God looks like, how He acts, how He behaves and what His character is like, simply take a look at Jesus. John 1:18, makes this even more clear for us:
“No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.”
That is an old-English way of saying: Listen, no-one has ever seen God the Father, except Jesus, who by-the-way is God Himself, shows us exactly what God is like.
So if our personal experience, our reasoning or our natural thinking does not line up with the revealed will of God in scripture through Jesus Christ. It’s time to throw that stuff away and replace it with what Jesus has shown us the will of God actually is.
Let’s take provision as an example. A surprising number of people just aren’t sure whether God actually wants to provide for them or not – some think that poverty is a sign of true humility, or that God wants them poor for one reason or another. But do these ideas line-up with the will of God that Jesus shows us in the scriptures? Let’s find out.
In Matthew 14, Luke 9 and Mark 6 it is recorded that Jesus feeds an entire multitude of more than 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two small fish. Some try to say that this is not a miracle because the loaves were so big that it was easy to distribute them to so many – until we read John’s account in John 6, which makes a note that the five loaves and two fish were being carried by a small boy. This was a miracle of Jesus’ provision, which clearly shows His care and compassion for the people. And not only giving just enough to satiate their hunger – but giving and supplying as much as they [the multitude] wanted… and then twelve basketfulls left over. (Mark 6:43) Not just baskets, but basketfulls of food.
Of-course we are all familiar with Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding feast in John 2. This was a party. This was not a necessity. This was not a need. Some people like to say that God will only supply our bare-necessities; only our most basic needs, and anything else beyond that is us just being greedy… but here we see Jesus turning water into wine when they ran out of wine at the party. Take a look at the character of Jesus here, and realize that it is the very character of God. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. (Psalms 23:1)
On to financial provision, this one is even easier! First of all, realize that Jesus had a treasurer. Now unfortunately the treasurer was Judas, and in John 12:6 it is recorded for us that Judas regularly stole from the money bag, which tells us two things relevant to our study:
1) The bag always had something in it to steal
2) It always had more than enough, because even with Judas’ thievery, they never lacked
It was Jesus who paid the temple tax, both for Himself and Peter when Peter answered without the benefit of wisdom when the tax-collectors accused Jesus of not paying the half-shekel. Matthew 17:24-25. Now technically He did not have to pay any of it because He was the King of the house, as He tells Pete; but Jesus proceeds to pay both for Himself and for Peter, (he who has ears let him hear) and not only does Jesus pay the cost, but He does so in a miraculous way, so that we know it is miraculous provision that only God could possibly do.
In Luke 22:35, Jesus asked His disciples, “When I sent you without a purse, without a pouch for food, without shoes, did you lack anything?” And they answered No.
See the marvelous, miraculous provision of Jesus. This is the manifested revealed will of God on display for you.
Now what about healing? Healing is a hotly debated topic; and many question the will of God regarding healing so let’s look at the revealed will of God in Jesus – Matthew 4:23:
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”
Do you know that all means all? Every kind? Not leaving anything out? I’m not asking that in a facetious way… I’m asking that to make it alive to you. Jesus healed all sickness and disease among the people.
And do you think that was just for Galilee? Skip ahead to Matthew 9:35:
“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”
Now I know some people say, “Sure God can heal, but only if he wants too… I just don’t know if he wants to heal me”. And Jesus does not let us wonder regarding that as well. Take a look at Luke 5:12-13:
“And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and sought him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be you clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”
Friend, Jesus is plainly telling us the will of God is to heal. His will is not a mystery, it is not a roll of the dice, it is not an unknown thing. The will of God is plainly revealed in Jesus.
Does that include unbelievers? Surely you must convince them of Jesus first, right? Well in John 9, Jesus heals a man blind from birth who later shows himself to the chief priests and tells them that he doesn’t even know if Jesus is a sinner or not! Only that Jesus had healed his eye and caused him to see!
In Luke 10:8-9, Jesus sends seventy out to various cities and tell them to heal every sickness and disease they find and then tell the people that the Kingdom of God has come. Notice the detail that Jesus tells them to heal first and then tell them. So if they are telling them about the kingdom of God after the healing, they may know nothing before-hand!
So many times we put artificial barriers between God and Man and prevent people from receiving from Jesus that He never placed there. Could it be that it is simply God’s will to love people by giving freely of Himself, including all of what that means and everything that includes?
Let me tell you, that today, I don’t even bother trying to teach a sick person first, unless they bring up a specific issue. Usually I just offer to pray for their healing… because if I try to tell them about why Jesus wants to heal them first, most people know just enough about the Bible to be dangerous, and they start trying to argue against their own healing. They will start telling me all of the reasons why they won’t get healed. So I just decide to get them healed first and then tell them why Jesus did it for them, and bypass all of their corrupted beliefs.
So what about protection then? Is it God’s will to protect us? Well, I think we all know the account of Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), which we studied in detail earlier this year. We know how Jesus appeared in the fire with them, and they were kept miraculously safe so much that their clothes didn’t even have the scent of smoke on them!
Likewise I think most of us recall the record of how Jesus was sleeping in the boat during the storm, and even though they were never in any real danger, because they were afraid, the scriptures record in Matthew 8:26, Mark 4:39 that Jesus rebuked the storm ad there was a great calm.
Now you might be tempted to say, “My specific need of protection hasn’t been mentioned!”
Fine, go ahead and read through Psalms 91, you can skip right to verse 10 if you are pressed for time: No evil shall befall you, no plague shall come near your dwelling.
Some would argue that Psalms 91 applies only to Jesus. You’re right, it does apply to Jesus… and you are tucked safely in Him!
So today, we have studied the will of God, as perfectly revealed by Jesus Christ. The will of God is not a mystery, Jesus came to reveal the divine will and character of God the Father, and He did it perfectly, as He Himself testifies in John 17:25-26:
“O righteous Father, the world has not known you: but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me.
And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it: that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
To declare a name to someone, meant to make the person known to them… and that is exactly what Jesus has done, He has shown us the perfect will of God, and it is greater than we can even imagine. God loves you more than you can even think, and that is shown perfectly by the life of Jesus.
So I encourage you today, do not let your personal experience, nullify the truth of the revealed will of God in Christ Jesus. Do not let your own reasoning speak louder than the Living Word of Jesus. Do not let your man-made theology over-ride Jesus’ perfect divine theology, because He wrote the book, and He is God. And He is greater than the box of our human mind and intellect.
Jesus is the Perfect Will of God For You.