The Bible gives us a great deal of instruction on God’s will. It’s comforting to know that we live within His sovereignty, and He gives us specific direction of His moral will.
God’s sovereign will is like a great ship that begin and ends at certain destinations. The passengers on that ship have a great deal of freedom to enjoy the food, entertainment and so on. They also know the boundaries—lifeboat and muster assignments, places that are off-limits and so on.
These are illustrations of God’s sovereign will, moral will, and permissive will.
His moral will is found in the Bible and is clear and unambiguous. I tells us what God wants us to believe and how to behave. We are to act out of love and kindness. We are not to be self-serving. We are to have integrity. We are to be faithful and generous, and act out of proper motives.
But His permissive will allows us to make decisions for ourselves. He even gives permission to refuse His moral will and live with the consequences. But what about His will in our personal situations?
The fact is the Bible doesn’t simply doesn’t talk about every kind of decision we make. It doesn’t tell us to take a certain job, buy a certain car, what kind of house to live in and so on.
Does God have a will for every individual decision? Here’s something that might surprise you.
When it comes to making decisions within God’s moral will, we have a great deal of freedom. It’s not absolute freedom because it is always bound by who we are—Christians.
For instance, last week I sat in $140,000 Porshe. Suppose I wanted to buy it. Are there things I should consider first? Of course.
Will it affect my ability to support my family. Will I be able to meet my other financial obligations? Will I still be able to pay my tithes and offerings to the church? Will my wife let me? :)
The Bible clearly tells us to love one another just as Christ loves us. It also tells us to love our neighbors. So, as Christians, we are bound by our concern for others.
Our faith requires us to always consider others in our decisions. If our faith does not touch people with love it's selfish, a blessing only to us. And, we must remember, oftentimes our decisions also involves their decisions.
So today, let’s go to a dinner party for a couple of examples:
1 Corinthians 10:23 – 29, 23“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 25Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. 27If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28But if anyone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience’ sake— 29the other man’s conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?
This very interesting passage is a perfect example of how God leaves many of life’s choices to us. He doesn’t spell out all the details of our lives because He’s given us the wonderful gift of freedom of choice, as well as intelligence to make the right choices. This truth is throughout the Bible.
At this dinner party the Apostle Paul acknowledged our freedom to make decisions as we live in a pagan world. The cliché is, we are in the world but not of the world.
Verse 27 sets the scene: 27If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.
Immediately we see the tension of a Christian living in a pagan world. You have friends and family who are not believers. And you do things with them. You enjoy meals together; you go to ball games and the theater together. And you try to be true to God’s moral will while doing these things.
For some of you this verse is a shocking statement of Christian freedom. What’s going on here? In Corinth the best meat markets were located in the pagan temples.
When the priest sacrificed to one of their gods, only a small part of the animal was actually put on the altar. Another part was for the priest’s honorarium. Some was given to the worshipper to take home.
There was a lot of meat left over at the end of the day, but there was no refrigeration. Since they couldn’t store it, they had to sell it. Thus the better meat markets were at the pagan temples
The meat also had to be used quickly, so whoever bought some would have a feast and invites friends.
So here’s the picture? Your friends have bought the meat and invited you to their dinner party. You know that the prime rib served at the feast had been offered to the goddess Aphrodite in the pagan temple that morning.
Aphrodite was the goddess of sexual love. There were 1000 temple prostitutes who plied their trade in her name. This kind of activity was totally abhorrent to Christians.
An invitation to such a banquet presents you with problems. One might be, “What are they going to do at this feast?” You might also wonder, “Are they going to serve idol’s meat?”
This sticky problem is what Paul refers to. The point here is that he didn’t tell the Christians of Corinth to take it up with the Lord. He didn’t say, “This is between you and God. He’ll show you whether you should go or not; or eat the meat or not.”
Instead, Paul said, “If you want to go, then go. Go and eat. The decision is up to you. There is nothing morally right or wrong, positive or negative about going to a dinner party.”
But he added a qualifier in verse 28, 28But if anyone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience’ sake.
Now the picture has changed. The implication here is that another Christian at the same party is bothered by the meat, or one of the non-believers wonders why you, a Christian, is taking the love-goddess’ meat.
“Go, have a good time. Don’t make a big deal about where they got the meat. But if eating that meat bothers a fellow Christian or affects your Christian witness, then don’t eat it.
“But don’t have a theological discussion about it. Don’t argue about it. You are there to enjoy good company and good conversation.”
In other words, if what I want to do conflicts with what is best for someone else, do what’s in the other person’s best interest. Remember, there are two sides to Christian freedom:
Look at verse 23 again: “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive.
The Key verse for a Christian in all of our activities and relationships is verse 24, 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. This is key to the decisions and choices we make.
There are two questions we must ask ourselves, “Am I a good representative of Christ?” We must always think about the good of the Christian community; we must take into account the best interests of our fellow-Christians.
And we must also ask, “Am I building up the Body of Christ?” We may believe and know that there’s not anything morally wrong with a certain choice. In fact Paul says in verse 29 that he doesn’t make up his mind on the basis of what others think.
But he also emphasizes that he is prepared to do what others believe is right for their good, for their edification, and as a positive witness to an unbeliever.
In this situation it is God’s will to do what’s for the good of others. Now, let’s get a little more personal:
Now let’s say you are single and you’ve gone to this dinner party. There you meet a cute guy/gal. One of the questions good Christians want God’s guidance in is in the area of marriage. “God, whom should I marry?”
Because marriage is so important, surely God must have the perfect mate picked out for each of us.
That’s very romantic, and to this day I believe that, almost 40 years ago when I looked through the window of the Spa Restaurant and saw Luaine inside and told myself that she was the girl I was going to marry, that God guided us to one another.
But does God choose our mate for us? Well, the old saying is, ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.’ The answer is that the decision is still ours.
A single person asks, “God, whom should I marry?” Expensive singles conferences are offered with seminars on dating and finding the right one.
But the question of “whom” remains. So you seek the advice of a Christian friend, and he tells you, “Well, God has someone for everybody. Leave it in His hands.” That sounds reasonable; but still, how are you going to know who that someone is?
Would she wear her hair a certain way? Would he carry a big Bible so you’ll know he is a Christian? Would there be a lightning bolt that carves her initials on a tree?
Or your friend might tell you, “If you are walking and living in God’s will (there it is again) He will speak and your listening heart will hear.” That sounds good. But how does a listening heart hear?
Here’s a thought—maybe we ought to find out what God says about it. God does care about who you marry, and He has something to say about it. Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, 2 Corinthians 6:14, Do not be yoked together with unbelievers…
This principle is reiterated in 1 Corinthians 7:39, 39A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.
Notice three things:
That’s all God says. So when thinking about marriage the first question we must ask and have answered is, “Is he/she a believer in Jesus?” Why? Because we know this is God’s specific, express will for us.
God says that your fiancé must belong to the Lord. Within that boundary you are free to marry whomever you choose—as long as the other person also chooses you.
It’s all about Christian freedom and what we are allowed within God’s moral will. None of this was written to restrict us, but rather to remind us that the choice is ours.
If a believer wants to get married the only boundary the believer needs to stay within is that his or her mate must also be a believer—and God will bless the marriage.
If you marry an unbeliever, you have stepped out of God’s moral will. And you are beginning your lives together already at odds with each other and with God’s will for you.
But God gives you the freedom to make the decision of whom you marry. You don’t necessarily marry any Christian who comes along, of course. You still weigh the pros and cons, but the choice is up to you.
God cares about the decisions we make, and some of our choices are ultimately better than others. Yet if we make our decisions within the boundaries of God’s sovereign and moral will, we have a great deal of freedom.
Rather than asking, “What is God’s will for me?” ask, “How do I make good decisions within His will? God has given me the precious gift of freedom and the intelligence to make good decisions. Lord, through prayer and the Scriptures I will do what I believe You would desire of me.”