Guidance Part 2: Does God direct us, and if so, how? (John 4-6, Acts 16)

Goal

To put together some basic rules of guidance from the New Testament model.

Guidance Part 2: Does God direct us, and if so, how?

1. Two problematic views: the “dot” and the “circle”
2. New Testament examples of guidance
3. Some basic principles

God’s will

1. God’s Moral Will (right and wrong)
2. God’s Sovereign Will (allows for evil to lead to good)
   • e.g. Judas
3. Relating the two together (Permissive)
4. Is there also an Individual Will?

Is there also an Individual Will?

• Where you will live
• Who, if and when you will marry
• What church you will belong to
• What work you will do
• Buying decisions
• What clothes to wear today

Ideas of Guidance

• The Dot of God’s perfect will
• Inside the circle everything that is not sinful. Outside it is sin
• But the dot in the middle is God’s perfect will for you
• God has mapped out an exact path for your whole life and you have to find it
• Even the smallest thing is important?
• Normal life (up to me)
• Major decisions (need to ask God)
• Where do we draw the line?

Wisdom view

• There is no dot
• He offers wisdom, but never promised guidance.
• God has already revealed what is right and wrong in the Bible.
• You have freedom to do anything you want in the circle

Four answers

1. Individual will: God has a plan for every detail of your life which he wants you to discover.

• If you miss it you are out of his will.

2. Way of Wisdom: He offers wisdom, never promised guidance.

• God has already revealed what is right and wrong in the Bible.
  • Free to do anything that’s not sinful.

3. Modified Wisdom: Usually 2. but God may sometimes give direct guidance
   • Do “due diligence”, but be open to supernatural direction
4. Having the mind of Christ: How Jesus lived
   • Similar in many ways to 3. but takes seriously the indwelling of the Spirit.

• If we are walking in the Spirit, it affects every choice we make.

God’s will

1. God’s Moral Will
2. God’s Sovereign Will
3. God’s Directive Will ←does it exist?

1. God’s Moral Will

• Mat 12:50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
• Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, – good and acceptable and perfect.

2. God’s Sovereign Will

• 1 Cor 1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

3. God’s Directive Will

• John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
  • Not just avoid sin
• John 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
• John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Acts 16: Decision about where to stay

12. …to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia. We stayed in that city for several days.
13. On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate by the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there.
14. A God-fearing woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.
15. After she and her household were baptized, she urged us, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Guidance Part 2: Does God direct us, and if so, how?

1. Two problematic views: the “dot” and the “circle”
2. New Testament examples of guidance
3. Some basic principles

Principles

• Ask God for Wisdom and Direction
• Beware if one contradicts the other
• Guard against the subjective (e.g. feelings)

Communications from God

Communications from God /1

Communications from God /2

Communications from God /3

Communications from God /4