Transcript
Speaker: Hey, welcome back to the Grove Hill podcast. So thankful you have chosen to join us today. ah We are missing our third partner in crime. He is once again on the road. Got to have to last him at some point, get him to stay with us a little bit.
Speaker: Hey, good to have my friend John Ballard here. It's be here. Man-on-man conversation today as we talk about something we've touched on many times and in weeks ah before prior to this because it's one of those subjects that just keep kind of keeps coming back around for people. Yeah. The idea of finding God's will.
Speaker: It's almost like I think people are looking for some formula. you know If i can just plug in these answers and get the machine to spit out some answer for me. yeah And to be quite honest, there is no perfect formula, right?
Speaker: No. what What does the Bible tell us about finding his will? Where do we start that journey, John? I think we see so much specific about God's revealed will. And that's kind of a a topic that you'll hear throughout the Bible. What did God reveal about what he desires for us? And that's from a big scope. Because sometimes we do look in Scripture for those unique things, the little specifics, but we have to look at first what God designed for all of mankind. right And we see throughout some instances that ah there will be ah specific things like, hey, obey this and you will prosper. Do this and...
Speaker: you know There will be good things that will come to you. But it's not full-on mandate that you do these things that life's always going to turn out great or that the will is always going to come with pleasantries. It's just not that way. But ah will of God is revealed in His Word. That's the best place that we can find it.
Speaker: You know, one of the things I've come to discover in my own journey and as I teach other people is that many times God's will is not a dot on the wall. it's more like the whole wall. It's kind of like he gives us a lot more freedom than we would probably want to know. And so when we're searching out his will, it may be that God is saying, i don't necessarily care that specifically about what you're doing. I just want to know that you're you're loving me and serving me while you're doing it.
Speaker: Yes. um You know, we we start the journey for looking for God's will in His Word. yeah David put it this way. He said, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. You're going to shed light on the journey for me. You're going to point me in the directions I need to go.
Speaker: But then there is a will. We know that many times, um starting with guys like Abraham and Gideon, all the way through the Old Testament, guys would stop and they would purposely redirect their life based on some kind of direction from God. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah yeah So let's talk a little bit more about how you get into that that process. how do How do you know when you're hearing from God? yeah and do We pray those kinds of questions. oh When we're hearing Scripture repeated in our life. and I just mentioned the revealed will of God. Sometimes, and you pointed to it, and I want to bring that out. You pointed to the specific and unique things that we hear time after time, day after day. It seems like day after day. why isn't God just revealing this to me? Well, um maybe it's because we haven't done the obedience part and what he's already revealed to us. But I think there's some areas in scripture that God says, okay, do these little small steps first. You mentioned the dot on the wall, do those things first, and then you'll start to understand my heart. yeah And with understanding of my heart, then I will reveal to you. And you have this...
Speaker: bit of knowledge that gets kind of like digested and then it turns into wisdom yeah and then wow i'm seeing this situation differently as i look at what's the right or wrong place to go or what's god's will yeah so what you're describing is is what i picture in my mind is almost like this funnel ah god God gives us some very broad directions about how to live life in His Word, and that's where we start this journey. And He says, all right, you start following me in this will, and the more you follow me, the more specifically you'll hear from me, and you'll know what it is I'm wanting to do. So He starts out with commands like, be joyful, ah love one another, those kinds of things. And as we follow Him, the more with
Speaker: in depth and intentionality we follow him and the longer we follow him, the more precisely we hear his voice. yeah Um, I've likened it. And this is one of my favorite analogies. I've likened it when I used to play football growing up in South Georgia. I used to play in, in,
Speaker: places where there were you know anywhere from 400 people to 4,000 people in different stands. But the one voice I always heard was my dad's. It was always my dad's. I don't care how big and how loud the c crowd was, I always heard my dad's and could pick it out, primarily because i was walking with him every day of the week.
Speaker: yeah Every day in my home, I could hear his voice. i would I knew what it was. If my dad had just showed up every Friday night for my game and that was it, he would have blended in with every other voice. And I would have never known exactly what it was he was encouraging me to do from the stands. But because I walked every day with him, his voice was the one that resonated in my ears every Friday night. Yeah.
Speaker: You bring up something really good. Whose will is resonating? Because you you mentioned it, I mentioned it, that we're talking about this walking with God and trying to to discern his will for our lives.
Speaker: But yet we're coming to God, almost pressing him with this... Hey, I've got these things and God, you choose which one I establish first, you know, one of the two.
Speaker: and I want to make sure that you're good with my plans. Yeah, that's not how it works. We follow God and God reveals the plans to us. And we have to look at it that way. And and we have to be okay with God changing the whole script yeahp and not letting us predetermine the this This ABC answer, like, God, you get to choose from these because the rest of it, that's too hard. It just doesn't work that way. Yeah. One of the things we like to caution people about, too, is reading too much into circumstances. Now, circumstances play a role in it, but it should be a much more minor role than the emphasis we put on it. What I'm talking about here is an open door doesn't always mean that's God's will. Right. Right.
Speaker: By the same token, a closed door doesn't always mean that it means God's not in it. um If you look at some of the things that Paul took on as a young missionary establishing the early church, those weren't exactly open doors of being thrown into prison or or beaten with whips. I mean, that's not the kind of stuff you do and go, oh, that was an open door for me. um So...
Speaker: If you're ranking it, you start with the idea of the Bible being the full command of God's will for us. Then you start talking about recognizing his voice in our personal prayer and our personal devotion, our personal walk with him. Then you get down to godly counsel. Godly counsel is probably another huge, significant thing. yeah. um And that's a place where I would caution, and I think you'd probably echo this, I would caution, make sure you do have godly counsel people in your life. People who are who are loving enough and bold enough to go, dude, you're missing it. yeah you know
Speaker: So tell me about young adults right now in a moment when this season, because they're all trying to find God's will. It's the biggest question that I... get to help walk alongside these young adults with is what is God's will for my life? Yeah. and you know, some of us adults are probably trying to answer the same question. And I say the adults in the sense of maybe somebody who's already been in the adulting portion of life, you know, and they're in their forties and their kids are,
Speaker: you know, walking the, the graduation, ah ranks, and then they're starting all over in a new season. So they're still trying to figure out, okay, what's God's will for my family. Right.
Speaker: All of us are asking that question, but the young adults specifically are thinking things like, what's my career, who's my spouse. And you don't get to the end goal of the spouse without asking the right questions. You put one of them out there of saying, who is giving godly counsel? Just because people say they're believers in Christ, I would rather take a body of proof of you living in my life and showing that there is investments before I ever fully trust you with these big decisions of, Hey, this is, this is a good person to, you know, stick around in your life. But those are some of the the polarizing questions that I've gotten asked.
Speaker: Uh, the, the, where do I go to college? You know, should I take a year off? Should I do this? And I love to ease the the burden and say, it's okay.
Speaker: Take a breath. ah God had said that if we obey these things that he's already commanded, that there's going to be things along the way that we don't see 12 months from now or 18 months from now, but God,
Speaker: Go, go, be smart, be wise. Look at the Proverbs. Sometimes we want to, um spiritualize things that, and I say spiritualize, we want to make these things so up in the air, like up in the sky kind of deals. Whenever God said, just be wise. Yeah. You know, should I go to Vanderbilt if I don't know what I want to do? Or should I go to a community college where I'm getting some stuff for free? Yeah.
Speaker: There's things that God's talking talking about with money that I think I'm probably going to go to community college if I'm not getting scholarships. Those are the things that we talk about. And another thing, spouse, um, conversations just live right in the sight of God. And God's going to continue to be able to open up some doors, uh, of godly friends. Many times spouses start out as friends. Yeah.
Speaker: And you see some of those characteristics. But there's I could talk about 20 different things that mentioned. Well, i like the fact that you said taking off the burden of a decision because I think yeah we all of us who are Christ followers need to be reminded that following God's will comes with a lot of grace. yeah So there's sometimes when if you've prayed for something, and let's say you're coming up on a deadline and you still just don't feel like a clear direction, make the best wise choice you can knowing what you know and realize there's nothing you can do that can undo God's will for you. Yes. yeah the only The only thing that can absolutely undo God's will is for you to say, I refuse to listen to it.
Speaker: So sometimes the choice, it's kind of like when I'm driving with GPS sometimes in a new place. Oh, yeah. And GPS tells me I need to go a certain way. And I go, I think this might be quicker. And I look at my wife and go, should I try it? And she says, oh, it's up to you.
Speaker: and I realize that there's a choice here. That choice may be I go one way, and it's quick and it's fast. It gets me where going. I go the other way. It's still going to get me where I'm going. It just may come with a little bit of detour, which requires more time and maybe a bumpier road or whatever. But God's still going to get me where he wants me if I'm continuing in obedience. I think that's the key to this whole thing here. Yeah. i want to i want to address what you just said, too. It's asking a set of questions that are filtering. yeah It is, first of all, is it right or is it wrong? If it's wrong, there is no God's will to it. If it's wrong and God says it's wrong... then we eliminate that. Always eliminate the wrong. If it's obvious. Yeah. I've had plenty of people that will try to will themselves into what is sin. And I'm like, we see that scripture talks about it as sin.
Speaker: There is no will of God that God doesn't write a new Testament for us. That's right. Uh, so new, new, test right? The Testament of John. No, do not listen to that. Uh, but we see this, is it right or is it wrong? And then what you just mentioned about the, the GPS,
Speaker: Good, better, and best. And I believe God wants best for His children. Right. But there's sometimes to where, you know, in our relationship with Him when we see Him really well, man, maybe this is God's will. doesn't mean that the outcome of the the process that we walk through or the the will that we walk into won't include suffering. Yeah.
Speaker: But we know that in that, as we see God clear, ah we're we're really trying to shoot for best, but God does have the grace. I want to go back to to this idea of circumstances, because I know one of the things that people for years have advised me when I've been asking, I think even in my early days of ministry, I advised, pray until you get a peace about certain things.
Speaker: that's That's horrendous advice. Okay? It's horrendous advice. so Why? Because many of the things that you read in Scripture where guys were clearly being obedient to God, there was no peace in it. Yeah, no. I mean, Noah, Noah was going to follow God's will and build an ark. He was harassed the whole time he was doing it by people. um You know, Joseph, Joseph's following God's will. Where does it start? In a prison.
Speaker: That's not peace, you know? So be real careful about seeking peace versus having a peace about the decision that you've made. Um, ah again, circumstances, circumstances are building character in us. Circumstances sometimes indicated it's exactly where God wants you. I mean, I, I believe with all my heart, 100%, I was called to be a pastor and in the church. There's been opposition all along the way.
Speaker: mean, from people I love, people I don't love, people I wish I'd never met, people who are best friends, you know? So it's just, it's a reality that, um, Good or bad, regardless of the circumstances, God is sincerely desiring a pursuit from us of Him.
Speaker: That's what He's wanting. That close pursuit and relationship. um You and I both are blessed to have some really incredible wives. Definitely. How hard would it be on them if every time we ran into a hard season, we went, oh, I don't have a piece about this. i'm going to have to leave this relationship.
Speaker: Man. ah That would be horrible. Yeah. i And you can't live like that. Well, the sad thing is that's what we have the world saying is, oh, it's not perfect. Yeah.
Speaker: By the way, it's kind of like the reels that you're wanting to post. Oh, man, it's not perfect. We got to do that. Take again. Yes. How many times do influencers probably do? maybe dozens if not hundreds of takes to get what they want. We do the same thing with our lives. We want to make sure that it's perfect. Oh, if it's not perfect, i don't have peace about it.
Speaker: We do that with our lives, but we have to realize that there is grace, right and we can't be ah micromanaging what God is intending for us. yeah Because god's God's ways are higher than our ways. Right, right.
Speaker: So ah let me just kind of go back to this really quick. I want to make sure everybody understands what we're talking about. You come up on upon a decision. We have what we call God's revealed will. That's the word.
Speaker: um Genesis all the way to Revelation has application for our lives. There are things that God has clearly showed us. I tell my people here at this church, and John repeats it frequently, that Most of what you need to know about God's will has already been given to you in his word Just put that into practice It actually will make other decisions down the road unnecessary because now suddenly you're following on a path That's been clearly marked for you. Is that my path gonna be hard? Yes Is it gonna be really difficult sometimes? Yes. Is it always gonna make sense?
Speaker: Absolutely not no But it is the best path at all times. So you start with God's will You do your own prayer. And by the way, if you want to make sure your prayers are are being done in the proper way, There's not a right way or wrong way to do prayer except for consistent.
Speaker: That's the one thing. You've got to stay consistent in it so that you have a relationship with God. There's the wise counsel of people who are truly godly, not your buddy who just goes down to church to the street, but someone who's really walking along with God and who loves you enough to tell you no.
Speaker: Then there is the situational, the circumstantial. I'd put that way down at the bottom, and I would give it very, very, very little influence in your decision. yeah If anything, that's kind of like the the cherry on top of the whole thing to say, yeah, this this proves that it's going to happen. um If you follow that kind of pattern in your life, there's a real good chance that you're going to get to the place where God can use you or bless you and whatever decision you're going on I saw a quote before we came on. I want to put this on here. I think this is really good. God's will is usually less about decoding a mystery and more about walking faithfully with the God who has already made his ways known.
Speaker: though Respond to that just a little bit before we...
Speaker: stop looking for perfection in the will of God and look for obedience in the will of God and really breaking that down. It's faithful walking with God. It's, it's, I heard a pastor say this the other day, it's not, ah the platform that you're looking for. It's the obedience before the platform. We all have a platform, right? Whether it's the person down at the grocery store or whether it's the, ah the guy delivering groceries, yeah we all have a platform. So be faithful in that platform and be faithful what with what you're given. And God's going to be able to say, hey I'm going to sustain you.
Speaker: I may not give you all the what you want, but I'll give you what you need. And that has really stuck with me, especially in that phrase, the statement that you just mentioned, that it is faithfulness that I think we need to elevate more than the perfection of, man that looks amazing. No, yeah this looks faithful.
Speaker: remember somebody telling me one time, which I thought was a pretty good idea, if you want to combine all these elements together, get back to the old-fashioned practice of writing on a sheet of paper and the the pluses and the negatives of a decision. yeah Then to take a step further, pray to God and say, God, I'm about to open your word. Show me from your word where this applies. And then through every one of those points, the plus and the negative, go down and see if you can find Scripture that relates to those things. Yeah. And let the scripture, once again, guide you in that decision so that you can have full confidence that you're operating in the territory, the field where God wants you to operate. Again, most of the time, we're looking for that dot on the wall and God saying, no, I'll give you a little more freedom than that. I trust you just to be wise based on what you're reading in my word.
Speaker: Yep. This is an important conversation. I don't want to diminish it. um I mean, it it starts typically around the age of of late high school years where kids starting to pray about going to college. I used to tell kids in my my youth group when they were asking that question, maybe God doesn't care whether you're a bulldog or a Sooner or a tiger or whatever you are. He doesn't care where you go. He just cares that you live for him when you get there. Yes. And that that kind of seemed to give a lot of relief to kids. um And then there's this concept that the world has forced on us. It really sounds good in principle, the idea of, oh, everybody has that one person out there. Well, just think about that logically.
Speaker: I was about to hit on that. If everybody just had one person and one person made a wrong decision, it would shed a chain reaction that nobody could recover from. i mean, everybody's person would be thrown off. So I think God has a character, a description of the kind of woman that he would— He would prefer you seek. yeah um Proverbs 31 is a great place to start looking for that. but There's not just one woman out there.
Speaker: no Not just one guy out there that meets those qualifications. Again, let grace be your guide. Let the Bible take you step by step living in this world. Trust that God has a will for your life and he's not playing hide and seek with you. You don't have to have a secret decoder ring to get it all figured out. no ah God loves you enough to point you in the right to straight direction and make sure he gets you there. Okay. Any final words? Yeah. ah I've just been kind of stewing on this, that we always look for the burning bush moments, like when we ask the question, God's will. Yeah. It's not the burning bush moments, but it's the...
Speaker: um lamp into our feet and light into our path and and those things are the consistent faithfulness points that i think god wants to direct us on because um last time i checked there was only the one burning bush that that was exposed uh in the old testament and so it's got to be the daily walking by seeing god's light in our life right you make a great point be real careful how you compare yourself to other people as they're seeking god's will because God may use a burning bush with one person. He may use a talking donkey with another. He may he may use, I don't know, a rainbow with somebody else I mean, God doesn't... In fact, if you look at even the miracles in the Bible that Jesus performed, he never performed them the same way. Yeah. It was always... And the reason he doesn't is because then it becomes a formula instead of a relationship. Yes.
Speaker: And so he wants that relationship. That's always the bottom line. Jesus wants a relationship with you. If you're looking for our advice on where to start seeking God's will, start with a relationship. How about praying for us before we close today? Let's do it.
Speaker: God, you revealed to us so many things in this word, and I'm just thankful for that today because it is the guide to my life, even when tough seasons hit. And when I'm trying to figure out what it is that you would have me do next, it's just the next obedient thing. And so I pray for our listeners that as they walk this life that you have for them, that they would pursue obedience first and that ah these things and circumstances in their life would become even more apparent of how they need to follow you and how they need to to set these platforms up so that you can get the glory.
Speaker: We thank you for this time and we thank you mostly for your word and for your presence. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen. Amen. Thanks again for joining us today. i don't think I've ever mentioned this online, but if you ever have questions, you can't get onto the message, I mean, the ah response part of this kind of thing, you always go to our church website, grovehillchurch.org. We've got a way to be contacted there. If you've got questions or would just love prayer, we'd love the honor of praying with you and for you as you're on your journey. We love doing this and having the opportunity to do it, but we want to make sure that it's got some real-life application and some purpose for you. Join us back here next week or...
Speaker: at one of our services, 8, 9, 30, and 11. If you're in the area, we'd love to have you. And as always, we appreciate if you click, like, and share this conversation with others. Love you and have a great week. See you next time.
