What is the Will of God?
- Edwin O'Hanlon
- 19 minutes ago
- 8 min read
‘Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 -
What is the will of God? There is no bigger question, so this big question demands a big answer. Over 60 years of preaching at Grace Community Church, John MacArthur met many believers eager to know God’s will for them. About these encounters, he says: “It seemed to me that many people were acting as if it was lost; as if God had placed His will in some obscure place; as if He were some sort of divine Easter bunny who’d stashed a golden egg in some bush and then sat in heaven saying: “You’re getting warmer” or “You’re getting colder” as we meander through the shrubbery of life trying to find the egg.’ But this is not so, and we’ll soon see why.
When God gives us a new heart, the Bible becomes a depthless wonder to us. We realize we could sit on a desert island our whole life and the profundity of God’s will found in it would never lessen. And yet the Bible’s depthless wonder doesn’t mean God’s will is unknowable. To me, this is the best lived evidence for the inspiration of Scripture. That despite its endless depths, God’s word still equips us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). But let’s not get sidetracked. We are here to explore God’s will, and my outline is from a timeless MacArthur sermon called Taking the Mystery Out of Knowing God’s Will. So let’s get cooking.
The will of God is foundational. It undergirds everything in our lives. Our relationships, our choices, and our careers are all built upon God’s will, our only true cornerstone. His will isn’t just a matter of information. It is a matter of obedience! David said: ‘Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God’ (Ps. 143:10). He didn’t say: ‘Help me to find Your will’ or ‘Teach me to understand Your will.’ No, for David - and for all believers - God’s will isn’t just a matter of knowing but of doing. Israel’s king didn’t ask God to reveal His will but to empower him to do it, implying David already knew it. A fact we will return to later.
Jesus lived in a constant pursuit of God’s will: “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Paul did the same, telling the church at Rome that he was always in his ‘prayers earnestly asking if, perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you’ (1:10). Likewise Peter, after telling us to live such holy lives that the unsaved will ask for an explanation of the hope in us, said we must ‘no longer live the rest of the time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God’ (1 Pet. 4:2). About God’s will, let’s first grasp what theologians call His decretive or determinative will, or that which God said He would do and has fulfilled by His own might.
Psalm 33 presents God’s decretive will, saying: ‘By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host’ (6). The psalmist then says what our reaction should be to God’s inviolable will: ‘Let all the earth fear Yahweh; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him’ (8). We must honor the Creator of heaven and earth and then marvel that this decretive will belongs only to God and nothing can stand against it. After, as we lower our eyes to the human level, we then find that God also has a will for us.
Returning to MacArthur’s divine Easter bunny analogy, we reason that if God wants us to know His will for mankind, then He surely wouldn’t hide it. It’s not under convoluted interpretations of Scripture. It’s not left to transcendental experiences or intuition. It doesn’t depend on private angelic delivery. And it certainly doesn’t need a serendipitous coincidence like when aspiring missionaries blindfold themselves and stick pins in a globe. No. If God has a will, and He does; and He wants you to know it, and He does; and He holds you responsible for it, and He does; then you must turn to the only obvious place to find it: The Bible.
God’s will for us, His image-bearers, is sixfold. Number one is we be saved from sins that would otherwise warrant God’s righteous judgment and our eternal death. Paul said: ‘This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:3-4). Peter agreed, saying: ‘The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance’ (2 Pet. 3:9). God not only wills our salvation but gifts us repentance leading to our rescue. God planned our salvation before creation and sent His Son to be the only sufficient sacrifice for sin.
So we start with salvation because none who reject Christ can know God’s will. This is why Paul quoted Isaiah, saying: ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him’ (1 Cor. 2:9). Paul knew God only reveals His will to those who love Him, and we only love the Father by loving His Son. It’s pointless to seek God’s will in a marriage or a career if you’re not saved by Christ. Only those who come to Christ in true repentance have any claim on knowing God’s will about anything else.
Second, God’s will is not only that we be saved but Spirit-filled. Paul warned us not to wander into ignorance when he said: ‘Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord’ (Eph. 5:17-19). He told the church to be Spirit-filled, not wine-filled. Why? Because the issue was control. Filled is plēroō in Greek. It means filling in a controlling sense, like wind filling a ship’s sails to move it along. We are to let ourself be controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit.
Alcohol may be legal, but for many it is a dangerous and controlling substance. Become drunk and you abandon all sanity and reason. You lose all control of behavior, speech, and emotion. This was a popular form of worship in Ephesus, where pagans drank themselves silly, hoping to transcend the temporal world and ascend into communion with demonic forces. So Paul told the Romans: ‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him’ (8:9). If we gain the Spirit when we are saved and become His temple, we ought to cede control to Him, be saturated by His word, and let that revelation direct our steps.
Third, Paul was clear when he said: ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thess. 4:3). Sanctification means separation, but separation from what? From sin, of course! When we are saved by faith in Christ and Spirit-filled, the Bible grabs hold of us and we are able to start obeying God’s perfect law. Paul went on to tell the Thessalian church to be separated from sexual sin, to handle and care for their bodies in a pure way, to not be ruled over by lusts, and to never defraud or take advantage of others. This is sanctification in action and it ought to define our Christian walk.
Fourth, God’s will is for our submission. James said: ‘Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you’ (4:7-8). This means humility, and it is the calling of all Christians. We start with submission to God, which grows into submission to fellow believers and spouses (Eph. 5), to the pastors who shepherd our souls (Heb. 13), and to kings and governors (1 Pet. 2:13-15) lest we cause the gospel to bear any reproach. Humble submission is the calling card of Christians, or it should be. Otherwise Jesus never would have promised: “The greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matt. 23:11-12).
Fifth, and maybe hardest of all, God’s will is that we suffer. Peter told believers ‘chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit’ it is God’s will ‘that you suffer for doing good rather than for doing wrong’ (1 Pet. 1:2, 3:17). The fact that God ordains trials is jarring, but the pain lessens when we see what suffering does for us. Peter talks a lot about suffering for doing what is right, as this is how we are perfected. We face this hostile world like Christ knowing ‘all who live godly in this present world with suffer persecution’ (2 Tim. 3:12). We live for God and glorify Him when other scorn us, knowing this is how the Holy Spirit convicts them of sin leading to repentance.
When we suffer like Paul, we are both humbled and strengthened. The apostle embraced trials as in them he saw the hand of God. Whether his thorn in the flesh was a physical ailment or a spiritual attack, Paul knew God gave it to him ‘to keep me from exalting myself’ (2 Cor. 12:7). He went on to say: ‘Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses…for when I am weak, then I am strong’ (12:8-10). Paul not only saw God’s purpose in suffering but he knew God gets all the glory when we throw off self-reliance and lean only on the Lord.
As we reach the last point, let’s recap. So, God’s will is that we be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, and suffering. Finally, God wills us to be supremely thankful. ‘In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’ (1 Thess. 5:18). Does this describe your life? Are you saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, suffering, and supremely thankful to the Lord who bought you? We all know we should be, but it isn’t always easy. Sometimes the Bible feels hard to open, prayer feels like a slog, and leaning on our own understanding becomes the norm. But a big reason to give thanks is that when we know God’s will – and now we do! – we are free to do what we want.
That’s right. You heard me. Do what you want! Marry who you want. Move where you want. Work where you want. But you’ll say: “Whoa! Are you sure?” Absolutely! Because if you truly are walking in God’s will, guess who’s controlling your wants and directing your steps? That’s right...God! This is why David said: ‘Delight yourself in Yahweh; and He will give you the desires of your heart’ (Ps. 37:4). As we saw at the start, David didn’t ask God to reveal His will but to empower him to do it by setting His very will in David’s heart.
And so as a Christian who is saved, Spirit-filled, etc, I ask myself, why do I love my wife? Because I want to. Why do I run a Christian ministry? Because I want to. Why do I seek chances to share Christ with the lost? Because I want to! All I have to do is make sure the wants coming from my heart reflect the desires God has for me. As Abraham’s servant said when God directed him to Isaac’s future wife: “I, being in the way, the Lord led me” (Gen. 24:27). So get in the path of God’s will and the Lord will lead you. He will fulfill His will in you if you just commit to Him and delight in His purposes.
‘Now to the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen’ (Hebrews 13:20-21).
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