Introduction:
How do I know the will of God for my life?
Matthew 6:10 - Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Ephesians 5:17 - Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Why "fleeces" aren't the way to know God's Will (Judges 6:36-40):
- Gideon already Knew God's will. (Judges 6:36-37).
- Gideon wasn't revealing his trust, he was revealing his Doubt . (Judges 6:36-37).
- Gideon was Telling God what to do. (Judges 6:37-39).
- Gideon still wasn't Convinced after the first round. (Judges 6:39).
What is God's Will for my Life?
- Saved
2 Peter 3:9 - The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise vas some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
- Sirit-filled
Ephesians 5:17-18 - Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit...
- Sanctified
1 Thessalonians 4:3 - For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality...
- Submit to the government
1 Peter 2:13-15 - Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
- Sometimes suffer
1 Peter 4:19 - Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
- Showing gratitude
1 Thessalonians 5:18 - give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up, if you please, to Judges 6.
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Judges 6.
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Now, we're going to be looking at the last few verses, but I need to sort of give you an on-ramp.
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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you the CliffsNotes version of what happened in Judges 6, and I strongly encourage you to read this if you haven't already, because it's an amazing account.
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for our purposes today.
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I'm going to give you the CliffsNotes version.
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Judges 6. The first six verses, we see the cycle again.
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Israel falls into sin.
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God punishes Israel by sending an invading nation.
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This time it's the Midianites, the Amalekites.
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And what they did was they were taking all of Israel's resources.
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They'd just show up and take the crops, they'd take the livestock, they would just take everything from Israel.
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Verses 7-10, an unnamed prophet shows up and says to Israel, "You have not obeyed the Lord." Which is why you're in the position you're in again.
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Verses 11-27, the angel of the Lord shows up.
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Again, we talked about this before.
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This is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.
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So the angel of the Lord shows up to a reluctant Gideon.
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Israel's next judge.
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Now Gideon says, "I'm weak. Will you show me a sign?" So Gideon makes meat and cakes, and the angel touches the meat and the cakes with the end of his staff and torches them.
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And then the angel vanishes.
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And that night, the Lord spoke to Gideon.
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He said, "Hey, tear down the altar to Baal and Asherah, and build an altar to the Lord." So Gideon did that.
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At night, verses 20-35, The men of the town were completely ticked off by this.
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They're like, "Who tore down the idols?
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We're going to kill them." And they find out that it was Gideon.
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So they go to Gideon's dad, and they're like, "Hey, bring him out.
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We're going to kill him." And Gideon's dad ends up bailing Gideon out.
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Meanwhile, while all this is happening, Israel's enemies were assembling.
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They crossed the Jordan, and they encamped, Gideon assembled his army.
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As I said, he's Israel's next judge.
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The Lord showed up to call him and to prepare him, but Gideon was having some very serious doubts about God's will for his life.
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And that takes us to verse 36.
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It says, "Then Gideon said to God, 'If You will save Israel by my hand, "As you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
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If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said." And it was so, when he arose early the next morning, and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to...
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And Gideon said to God, "Let not your anger burn against me.
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Let me speak just once more, please.
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Let me test just once more with the fleece.
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Please, let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground, let there be dew." And God did so that night.
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And it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.
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Here's a question we're going to be asking this morning.
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How do I know God's will for my life?
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How do I know what God wants for my life?
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And I've got to tell you, over the years of ministry, I've seen this become, ironically enough, I've seen this become an unhealthy obsession with people.
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I remember very early on meeting a young lady I just don't know what to do because I feel like when I'm at home, maybe God wants me to be at church, but then if I go to church, what if somebody was going to call me at home and needed me there?
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And how am I supposed to know where God wants me?
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And that might sound silly to you and I, but this woman was... she was in tears.
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She was driving herself crazy, obsessing over where exactly does God want me to be at any minute.
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I worked with a man. Christian.
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I said, "What are you doing with your life?" He says, "Well, I'm going to stay at home until God tells me what to do." Through his 20's, through his 30's, through his 40's.
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Still waiting for God to tell me what to do.
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Or, one of the most bizarre cases I've seen, and not just bizarre but creepy, I remember going way back in Bible college, there was a man who dated this girl, and she broke it off.
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And he shows up at her dorm, like, bussing, pounding on her door.
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"The Lord said that we're supposed to be together!
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God told me this is His will! We belong together!" Like, scale of 1 to 10, how creepy is that?
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She's like, "God didn't tell me that." Well, nothing's more important to a Christian than doing the will of God, right?
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I mean, honestly, get any true born-again believer, there's nothing more important.
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And actually, Jesus taught us to pray for that, right?
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Didn't He teach us to pray?
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Matthew 6:10, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So when we say the Lord's Prayer, when we pray the ingredients of the Lord's Prayer, we're praying for God's will to be done.
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For any true Christian, you say, "All I want for my life is what God wants for my life." Right? That's all we want.
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"I just want what God wants for my life." Nothing else. Nothing less, nothing more, just what God wants for my life.
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So how do I know the will of God for my life?
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Well, have you ever heard the phrase, "putting out the fleece"?
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How many people have heard that phrase?
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You've got to put out the fleece. Okay, a lot of you have.
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You've got to put out the fleece.
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You want to know God's will for your life?
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You've got to put out the fleece.
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That's how you know God's will for your life.
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You've got to put out the fleece You've definitely used the concept.
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Use the concept even if you don't know the term.
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How do I know God's will for my next job?
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Or I'm thinking about buying a new car, but how do I know which car God wants me to buy?
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Right? Or possible spouse.
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How do I know it's God's will that I marry this person?
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And for any situation like this, when you put out the fleece, you say, "I'm just going to put God to a little test.
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I'll put God to a test, and as He performs for me, He will confirm what He wants me to do." For example, you say, "God, if You want me to marry this person, have her call me or text me by seven o'clock, and if she doesn't, then I'll know it's not Your will." Um, hmm, what if she calls at 7.30?
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Are you like, well God, I'm not sure what time zone you're operating on at present, but she's really cute, so I'm gonna take this as a yes.
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Or what if you're like, God, if you want me to take this job, then they're going to call and offer a base salary of $60,000.
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What if the job offers $55,000?
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Are you like, "Well, that's close enough." Or are you like, "You know what, maybe the devil's trying to trick me.
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God doesn't want me to have the job, Satan's throwing me a curveball here." Or if we say, "God, you know what, our church is looking at property." We're not, we're pretending here.
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But God, our church is looking at this property, and if you give us the money, by October 1st, we're going to buy this property.
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Well, what happens if October 1st comes and we don't have the money?
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Do we just borrow what's lacking and call it faith?
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So you can see where it gets a little gray, doesn't it?
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It gets a little sketchy.
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It gets a little hard to navigate and discern your way through when we put God to these little tests.
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But at the same time, Ephesians 5.17 says, "Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Like, well, how do I do that?
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Is setting the fleece the way to go to determine God's will?
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Is this the way?
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getting it here. Is this the way you determine God's will?
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And the answer is absolutely not.
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Okay? Bad example.
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So in order to learn God's will, the first thing I'm going to do is tell you how not to know God's will.
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On your outline, "Why Fleeces Aren't the Way to Know God's Will." "Hang on, Pastor Jeff. It's in the Bible, man.
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How do you know that this isn't the way for Gideon and for us to know God's will?
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How do you know that Gideon was wrong to do this?
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I'm going to give you four reasons why Gideon was wrong to do this.
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Letter A, Gideon already knew God's will.
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It wasn't as if Gideon was sitting around going, "I just wonder what God's will for my life is." Jesus Christ personally showed up and told him.
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And then the Lord spoke to him again that night.
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God's will, if you look at chapter 6, God's will is already stated three times in that chapter.
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Verse 12, verse 14, verse 16.
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God could not have made it any clearer.
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He showed up and told him.
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And you're like, "Well, how do we know..." Okay, Pastor Jeff, I get that.
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But how do we know that Gideon really understood God's will?
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How do we know that Gideon really understood what God was saying?
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Because Gideon repeated it back to God. Did you see that?
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In this passage here, he goes, "If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said..." Then later on, verse 37, "Save Israel by my hand, as you have said..." Gideon points out twice, "I knew exactly what you said." So Gideon already knew God's will.
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Letter B, "Why fleeces aren't the way to know God's will?" Because in this passage, Gideon isn't revealing his trust, he was revealing his doubt.
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He wasn't revealing trust in the Lord, he was revealing doubt in the Lord.
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God already promised and proved Himself to Gideon throughout chapter 6, and now Gideon here was saying, "God, I know what You said, I know what You said, but I don't know if I really believe." In the church, has God promised to direct us and to guide us?
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Has God promised that to us?
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Has He promised guidance and direction?
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Like cover to cover in the Bible, right?
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He says things like, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age." He says things like, "I will guide you." "I will instruct you." "I will tell you the way in which you should go." Things like, "I will never leave you or forsake you." Things like, "The Lord is my shepherd." "Jesus, I am the good shepherd." hear my voice and they follow me." Over and over and over.
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God has promised to lead and to guide us.
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So what's the problem?
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I am. I'm the problem.
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Our fleeces, when we put God to these little tests, they're driven by doubt.
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And so often, church, we're exposed to what is clearly God's will, and we just don't believe Him.
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So Gideon wasn't revealing his trust, he was revealing his doubt.
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Let her see, "Here's a problem." Gideon was telling God what to do.
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See, Gideon didn't come and say, "You know what, Lord?
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I'm really afraid. Can you do something to relieve my doubts?
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Can you reveal yourself to me?
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Can you strengthen my spirit? Can you..." It wasn't that. It was, "Yeah, God, could you change the course of nature because I'm telling you to?" You see, we are called to obey God, not the other way around.
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You got that, right?
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He is God and I am not.
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Right, I am not God.
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Last time anybody checked.
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And neither are you.
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And yes, Gideon was going through an ordeal.
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It was a hard season, but humbling yourself before God does not mean you establish the guidelines for God to work.
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That's not how it works.
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Gideon was telling God what to do. That's a bad plan.
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Okay? We come as children.
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and certainly we come boldly before the throne.
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We bring our supplications, but not the right attitude.
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Letter D.
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Here's a problem.
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Gideon still wasn't convinced after the first round.
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You notice that?
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Laying a fleece is the way to know God's will.
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Gideon found it to be kind of ineffective himself, because the first test wasn't good enough.
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He actually had to try another.
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And we see even in this passage, he knew he was treading on thin ice.
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Did you catch that?
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He was like, look, verse 39, "Lord, please don't be angry, but..." So if this is the way we learn God's will, why wasn't Gideon satisfied the first time?
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So I would suggest to you, church, that laying out the fleece is not the way to discern God's will.
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You're like, "Well, hang on.
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Hang on, Pastor Jeff.
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If Gideon wasn't doing the right thing, then why did God respond to him?" Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
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Everybody go, "Huh?" Yeah. Yeah.
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Riddle me this, preacher boy.
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Why did God respond to him Gideon wasn't doing the right thing.
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And the answer is grace.
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The answer is grace.
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God had plans for Gideon and God had plans for Israel.
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And Gideon was a lot like me in this way.
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He was a little slow on the uptake.
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Anybody else that way?
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and my God loves me so much that He teaches me the same lessons over and over sometimes.
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And that's what we have here.
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This is God being gracious.
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This is God being gracious.
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But we're not to make something like this the playbook for God's will.
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This passage is descriptive.
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This passage isn't prescriptive.
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Alright?
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So that's how you don't know God's will.
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And I would dismiss you now, I'd be afraid that you would leave and somebody would say, "What did you learn in church?" And you would say, "Well, all we learned was how not to learn God's will today." I can't leave you hanging.
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God wants you to know His will even more than you want to know God's will.
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Do you believe that?
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Like, I want to know God's will. God wants you to know it.
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So, He wrote it all down for us. Right here.
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He wrote it all down.
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Just as Gideon had the revealed Word of God, so do we.
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Yes, God has given His Holy Spirit to guide us, and God has given other Christians to counsel us, but both of these are confirmed by aligning to His unchanging Word.
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So, I'm going to tell you today, what is God's will for my life?
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What is God's will for your life?
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I'm going to give you six things.
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Now, every one of these things could be a sermon series.
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We're doing a fly-by today for the purpose of understanding God's will as a whole, okay?
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So, what's God's will for my life?
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Six things.
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I just want to know what God wants for me.
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Put it down. Here they are.
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Alright?
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First thing God wants.
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First thing God's will for you, number one, without a doubt, top of the list, is God wants you saved.
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He wants you saved.
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Look at 2 Peter 3:9.
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It says, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, patience towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." Absolutely. Number one, top of the list.
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God loves you.
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God has an eternal love for you that is beyond human understanding or description.
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A love that He demonstrated by sending His Son to die in your place on that cross to take away your sin.
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That's how much God loves you.
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If your salvation meant me killing one of my sons, it's not going to happen.
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I would not sacrifice my son for any one of you.
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I wouldn't sacrifice my son for all of you collectively.
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You are loved.
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You are loved, but I don't love you as much as I love my son.
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But you see, that's where God and I are different.
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God was willing to allow His Son to die in your place.
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Why? Because He wants you saved.
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That's the degree to which the Lord wants you to receive the gift of eternal life.
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He made perfect provision through the death of His Son.
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That's number one.
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Number two, God wants you Spirit-filled.
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Ephesians 5.17, we already touched on this briefly.
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Ephesians 5.17 says, "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." You're like, "What is the will of the Lord?" "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." Yes, all born-again believers have God's Holy Spirit.
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So what do you mean it's God's will that we are Spirit-filled?
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where he says, "Be filled with the Spirit," the Greek tense literally is, "Be being filled." It's a picture of constant flowing.
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Constant flowing.
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Constant flowing.
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It's not a stagnant pond.
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It's a river constantly flowing in you and through you.
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We talked about that in John a few months ago.
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But it's a constant river.
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That's God's will.
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It's that relationship of walking with Jesus Christ in His Spirit, as His Spirit indwells you.
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Be being filled. That's God's will.
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And notice the picture that He uses.
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He compares it to being drunk.
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Just as a drunk person is completely controlled by the alcohol.
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The alcohol controls the way he walks.
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The alcohol controls the way he talks.
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The alcohol controls the way he thinks.
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The Holy Spirit should have that kind of control over you.
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The Holy Spirit should be controlling how you walk, how you talk, how you think.
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The Holy Spirit should have that control.
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It's an act of cooperation and participation with the work of the Spirit.
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But that's God's will for your life.
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He wants you saved, and He wants you walking by His Spirit.
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He wants you Spirit-filled.
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Thirdly, He wants you sanctified.
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1 Thessalonians 4.3 says, "For this is the will of God." Your sanctification.
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into sanctification.
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It's just a fancy word that means growing and maturing in Christ.
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Just as a human baby grows and matures and develops into an adult person, that's how it is as Christians.
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We are baby Christians.
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We grow and mature and develop.
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That process is called sanctification.
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The only difference is as Christians, we never stop growing and maturing and developing.
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It's a constant process.
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Well, can you be specific?
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Well, He is. 1 Thessalonians 4.3.
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Your sanctification, He makes an immediate application point.
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You abstain from sexual immorality.
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It's a big part of your sanctification, is keeping yourself pure.
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That's what God wants for you.
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He wants you growing.
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He wants me growing, maturing in Christ.
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What's God's will for your life?
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He wants you saved. He wants you Spirit-filled.
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He wants you sanctified.
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you want you to submit to the government.
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1 Peter 2 says, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good." He says, "For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
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You see, as Christians, it ruins our testimony to be lawbreakers.
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So God has called us to submit to the governing authorities.
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Fifthly, it's God's will that we sometimes suffer.
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We sometimes suffer.
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"Therefore let those who suffer..." Look at this.
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"According to God's will, entrust your souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." Sometimes it is God's will that we suffer.
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And that's not very popular to say.
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That's not very popular in a lot of churches.
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But it's popular in the Word of God.
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And that's really the only thing we're concerned about in this church, right?
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It's God's will sometimes that you suffer.
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Now, I have to explain again.
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and this is just an overview, but I have to give a word of explanation here.
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He's not talking about chalking up tragedies as being God's will.
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That's not what he's saying.
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Well, so-and-so died in an accident, but it's God's will that I suffered.
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That's why he died in that accident.
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Or, so-and-so got this disease and passed away, and it's God's will that he suffered.
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That's not what he's talking about.
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If you look at the context of 1 Peter 4, he's talking about suffering because of persecution.
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That's exactly what he's talking about.
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It's standing for Christ.
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People hate you because you're standing for Christ.
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You're suffering for persecution.
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You're suffering for righteousness' sake.
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Why in the world would that be God's will for my life?
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I'll tell you why.
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Because when you suffer for righteousness, that makes you like Jesus Christ.
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Right?
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And God's number one goal for you, Romans 8.29, is to be conformed into the image of His Son.
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God wants you to look like His Son.
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And one of the ways that happens is when you suffer for righteousness' sake.
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When you take a stand for the truth, and people hate you for it, and you suffer for it, sometimes it's God's will that you suffer for that.
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And that's okay.
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Because that's making you like Jesus.
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And then finally, what's God's will for my life?
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Save, spirit-fill, sanctify, submit to the government, I sometimes suffer.
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Number six, showing gratitude.
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Liberation is hard.
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I could not think of a synonym for thankfulness that began with an "s." Anybody?
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Anybody?
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That's what I thought.
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I saw you people like, "Oh, I see how he snuck the's' in there." Showing gratitude.
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that you're about to do right now.
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1 Thessalonians 5.18 says, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Again, sort of like we talked about in the last point.
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You're to give thanks in all things, not for all things, right?
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I'm not thankful for tragedy.
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I'm not thankful for people suffering or dying.
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or "I'm not thankful for hard circumstances from evil people." What that means is, "I'm thankful in, even when the whole world is crashing around me, I'm thankful for everything that God has done, I'm thankful for everything God is doing, and you better believe I'm thankful for everything that God is going to do." And when you have that attitude, that's why He says, in all circumstances, give thanks.
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Give thanks.
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This is the will of God in Christ Jesus.
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So here's God's will for your life.
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Are you ready?
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This is God's will.
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If you are saved, if you are filled with His Spirit, if you are sanctified, morally pure, if you are submissive to the government, if you're suffering for righteousness' sake, if you're thankful for everything, then you do whatever you want to do.
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That's God's will for your life.
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His will has a lot less to do with the whats and the hows and the wheres.
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God's will for your life is more about who you are.
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And the person He's making you to be by the power of His Holy Spirit.
Small Group Discussion
Read Judges 6:36-40
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why is “fleece-laying”, like Gideon, not the way to learn God’s will? How do we know Gideon didn’t need to do that?
How do you know someone’s advice is from the Lord or from their own ideas?
Tell of a time you struggled to know God’s will for something in your own life? How did you ultimately make the decision? Did you feel it was the right one?
Breakout
Pray for one another.