How to do the will of God ? ?

Acts 16:1-10

Acts 16:1-10.

Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. Every men in the history ask God to know the will of God in their life. Elijah in 1 Kings 19 is an example!

Why don’t God send you a WhatsApp?

Why don’t God send you an email? Maybe you come to church hoping that somehow God will reveal it to you His perfect will? 4 types of the will of God. 1. Predestined will of God. 2. Prohibitive will of God. 3. Providential will of God.

4. Permissive will of God. 1. Predestined will of God. God is sovereign.

1 Timothy 6:15, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,

Job 14:5, Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass.

Psalms 139:16, Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

God has set that there are certain things in your life will happen to you no matter what! You cannot escape, avoid and they are written by God.

Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah did not have an option. You may have some doubts about what are the things are predetermined.

• a. The day you were born.

• b. Your Parents.
• c. Your race.
• d. Your Ethnicity,
• e. Your colour.
• f. Your structure
• g. Your death… etc., 2. Prohibitive will of God.

Your birth and death are predetermined but there are other steps you must go through in between in your life. God created Adam and Eve and gave them the permission to eat everything except one.

Genesis 2:15-17, Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” For all the human God has instructed us what we should not do! Read through the Ten Commandments it gives what we should not do.

As we read the scriptures, we come to know what we should not do! God also given us the conscience by which we know what we should not do. You do not have to be a bible knowing Christian to do know about that you should not murder or steal etc., 3. Providential will of God.

These are things what God wants us to do. These are the desire of God wants us to have. The blessings what God wants us to have in our life. God has a plan to prosper us.

1 Timothy 6:17, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.

Psalms 16:11, You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

John 10:10, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. Providential will of God is available but you got to choose.

Matthew 6:33, But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 4. Permissive will of God.

This is not predetermined by God. One must choose to act upon the daily circumstances and based on my action God respond that shapes the world around us. When you come to crossroad then you have left with options to choose from, which is permissible by God.

Bulk of your life spent on this permissive will of God. When you pray to God in choosing the option in the permissive will of God will align you with predestined will of God. For every decision God has a desire in your life.

Either big or trivial issue God cares about everything in your life.

So, what happens is how does my choices will affect my providential will of God?

• Life is at best for you when your permissible will of God is aligned with the providential will of God.
• Life gets bad when your choices in the permissible will align with the prohibitive will of God.

When you make a decision in the permissible will of God misalign with the Providential will of God the damage is very minimum. Say the desire of God for you to wear a black dress and you wear a blue the damage is very minimum. But if God’s desire for you to marry Peter and you end up marry John then the damage is very high.

How to decide what to do when I am in the permissible will of God? How do I know what God wants me to do? I would say read your Bible and Pray.

God would not say which church you should go to but when you read your bible it will simply guide you to worship and be in fellowship. Bible will tell you love your husband, but it would not say who is got to be your husband.

Bible would not tell you where to buy your home. Bible would not tell you which job to take? Bible gives us the broad guidelines, but it would not give you the specific instructions for you to take in your daily lives.

How do I know what to do? Let us learn from Apostle Paul. Acts 15 is the Jerusalem council meeting takes place then again they want to travel to the Galatia region. Paul and Barnabas are having problem who to take with them.

Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with him but Paul refuses because he had deserted them in their early trip to Pamphylia in Acts 13.

So, they part company. Barnabas takes John Mark with him to Cyprus. Paul takes Silas who was a prophet and a Roman from Jerusalem with him to Derbe and Lystra of Galatia region. There they meet Timothy. Timothy was circumcised since he was going to be ministering to the Jews.

V 5, says God was adding people to the church daily. V 6-7, Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. 7 After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.

Holy Spirit guides them. Holy Spirit directs them. Holy Spirit reveal to them the will of God. God used His small still voice to direct them.

How did the Holy Spirit forbid them? No answer in these scriptures.

They did not see that the obstacles as the forbidden route by the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit helps them to discern and understand the will of God. V8, So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. They reached to Troas.

How to take the decision? 1. Prayer. Please speak to Him. Its dialogue not monologue.

Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Isaiah 30:21, Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left.

2. Fasting. You quieten yourself to hear the voice of God. Social media is the biggest threat to hear from God these days.

• Jesus fasted to acknowledge His dependence and to gain spiritual strength through reliance on the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. He did this before He began His public ministry (Luke 4:1-2).
• Nehemiah fasted for confession, repentance, and favour in the sight of the king to get permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:4).
• David humbled himself, asking God to intervene because of injustice (Psalm 35:13).
• Mordecai and the Jews fasted upon hearing the news of Haman’s wicked plot for their extermination (Esther 4:3).
• The early church fasted while worshiping and committing their ministry to the Lord. They also sought the Lord through fasting for guidance and confirmation during the appointment of elders (Acts 13:2, 14:23).

• Jesus expected His disciples to fast, but He did not command it (Matthew 6:16). 3. Closed doors.

V9-10, And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

When they wanted to go to Turkey the Holy Spirit prevented them. When they wanted to go Bithynia, Holy Spirit prevented. But when they wanted to go based on their won conclusion to go over Macedonia they were not blocked.

We can understand one thing clearly from this

They were able to discern the will of God through the closed doors.

Revelation 3:7, “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts,

and shuts and no one opens”

Isaiah 22:22, The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; So he shall open, and no one shall shut; And he shall shut, and no one shall open. Not keeping quiet and being idle.

Do you want to do the will of God? Go and do! Pray to God if it is not from then He close it. When you look back in your life you will be able to thank God for all the closed doors.