The Will of God and Prayer

Sermon beginning July 11, 1999
By Pastor William R. Cunningham

Introduction

There are many teachings in the Christian community regarding acquiring our needs and wants. Some of these teachings seem reasonable and some even seems correct. However, we may get a very different picture if we look at the Bible’s teaching on answered prayers and acquiring the things we want and need. Unfortunately, in my experience most Christians do not study their Bible to know what it says and does not say. The average Christian, in my experiences, is more in tune with Churchianity than Christianity. That is, they are more concerned with following the rules and regulations handed down to them by their church instead of learning the word of God and living by it.

Prayer is one of those areas where there are numerous ideas of how we should pray, what we should pray for, and how to get your prayers answered. My study of the scriptures has led me to believe that many of these teachings are incorrect or inaccurate. There is the word of faith teaching, which I believe is very wrong in its teaching on prayer and acquiring our needs and desires. There is of course the "name it and claim it" teaching that instructs us to "just believe God" for the things we want. There are also the tithe teachers that link tithing to a church with acquiring blessings from God as if God can be bribed.

There are also numerous teachings on the will of God as it pertains to prayer. Some try to read the signs of the times or the circumstances and situations that occur in their lives. Some wait for a "word from the Lord" and others wait to feel peace about things or to feel led by the Spirit in order to make decisions in life. Some expect God to tell them who to marry or what job to take. Some believe that God will speak through other "prophets" or the pastor in order to guide them in daily activities. Why do we believe such things? We believe these things because we do not believe the Bible. Why don’t we believe the Bible? We don’t believe the Bible because we don’t know what it says and therefore cannot believe it.

We will look at prayer and God’s will in this lesson. We will discuss the relationship between God’s will for us and the answering of our prayers. We will identify God’s will for our lives and what this really means in prayer.

Please note that this lesson does not adhere to the doctrines presented in many churches in that the information herein is not religious in nature. I have tried to take the evidence that is given in the Bible and draw conclusions from them as best I can. I have found in the past that many times the conclusions that come from the actual study of the Bible are not consistent with what is taught in many religious circles. Therefore, my presentation at this point is based on the word of God and not on religion or a church’s or evangelist’s teaching or understanding.

Prayer and God’s Will

The Apostle John declares….

The important thing we can notice in this scripture is that our confidence in God answering our prayers is based on whether we pray according to God’s will or not. The question then becomes "What is God’s Will?" How do you know what the will of God is so that you can pray effectively? How do you know what to believe God for so that you can pray with confidence? How do you know if the decision you make is according to God’s will? For example, is it God’s will for you to marry a certain person or join a certain organization? How do you know? Let’s talk about these questions now.

First of all, as Christians we should be within the will of God. The fact that I said within will become important and evident later in this discussion. For example, consider the model prayer that Jesus taught us through His then disciples.

Notice that verse 10 instructs us to pray that God’s will is done. This implies that our prayers should be consistent with the will of God else we are not actively pursuing God’s will to be done. So again what is God’s will and how do we know that we have received it?

God’s Will

What is God’s will? God’s will can be defined as those things that God has determined that he wants, the choice of God, the purpose of God, or the decree of God. It is important to realize that God is sovereign when we consider the operation of His will on Earth? He is the absolute ruler of the universe and he can do whatever He wants whenever he wants. This implies that there is no choice except for God’s will to be accomplished everywhere. If this weren’t true then God wouldn’t be sovereign. However, if we are not careful, our ideas of God’s will and the way things happen on this earth will be deemed inconsistent, which will lead to an inaccurate view of God’s will. Let me explain. You may say that it is God’s will that you invest in a certain company. However, if that company should fail sometime later or you lose a lot of money in that investment then you are likely to conclude that the loss of your money was the will of God. You may credit the sickness of friends and relatives as solely the result of God’s will. In other words, God wanted your loved one to die of a disease or something like that. Though we do not and cannot understand the sovereignty of God and therefore the "why" of God’s activities, we can look at the Bible to help us determine what is God’s will or not. Consider the following scripture.

How can we know God’s will? We can know God’s will by being transformed by renewing our minds. How is your mind renewed? It is renewed by the word of God that is in you. Your thinking processes can change if you saturate yourself with God’s word. Note that God’s word is not just ink on paper. They are life. See John 6:63. Consider the following scripture.

So KNOWING the word of God is very important for knowing God’s will. However, right away there is a problem. How can the Bible tell you what job to take or who to marry? You will find no specific instruction in the Bible for specific circumstances and events in your life. So what can you do to insure that you are within the will of God?

Identifying God’s Will

Let’s qualify God’s will. Of course we should understand that this is just an attempt to understand as best we can how the will of God operates in our life. The infinite nature of God prohibits us from fully understanding him. With that said let’s try to identify the operation of God’s will as a whole and in our lives. First, there appears to be two categories of God’s will. However, the second category can be divided in two making at least three categories of God’s will altogether. These are:

1. God’s absolute will

2. God’s permissive will

• The things that God makes available and desires for us to do. Our choice to obey.

• The things that God allows according to his will for us to exercise our own free will

Let’s talk about God’s absolute will first.

God’s Absolute Will

This is directly related to God’s sovereignty and Him acting it out. God’s absolute will are those things that God wants and brings about by his own power with no regard to anyone or anything else. An example of this is the redemption of man. There is nothing that could have interfered with God’s will to bring Jesus into the world to die for our sins. Nothing could have stopped that. It didn’t depend on anyone’s thoughts, ideas, objections, will, or obedience. It was going to happen and it did happen because God specifically made it happen. Another example of God’s absolute will is the creation of all things. God desired it and He did it—period!

How does this apply to our lives? Does God will for us to have a certain house, car, or job? Did God make a certain person sick so that they would die? If we apply God’s absolute will to these things then we can come to the conclusion that it was God’s will that someone die of cancer or have a certain job or marry a certain person. I do not believe this is true because the Bible does not provide evidence to the affirmative. It provides evidence to the contrary. There must be another mode of God’s will operating in the world (and universe). See Isaiah 55:11.

God’s Passive Will

These are the things that God permits for one reason or another. As I said, this can be divided into two sub-categories just for the sake of our understanding. These categories are:

1. God’s Desire—He permits us to make a choice to obey him and accomplish his desire

2. God’s delegation—to act out our own life according to our free will—life application

Let’s look at these two now.

God’s Desire

God’s desire for mankind is that God is not actively performing his will as in the case with his absolute will. There is a component of the will of man here. God’s desire pertains only to humans since we have free will. We can choose to do what he says or not. Of course it is God’s desire that we do what he says. A great example of this is found in the following scripture.

Rom. 1:10 (NKJV) making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.

This becomes evidence when we consider that God’s sovereignty tells us that God could make everyone believe in Jesus Christ. However, because of his sovereignty, he chooses to allow us the opportunity and the free choice to obey his command to believe in Christ (1 John 3:23). He desires for all to be saved but it is up to us to believe in Jesus Christ.

What does this mean? This means that there are some things that God desires for us and it is up to us to obey his commands to carry them out. These do not effect his absolute will at all. This category, if you will, of God’s will involves the exercise of our free will within the confines of God’s absolute will. See also 1 Timothy 2:3-4 and Luke 7:30.

I would like to add one other thing. The ability or power to do what God wants originates from God. That is, we are only able to obey God and submit to his will by the power that resides in us from him. We can’t even obey him with our own strength. Consider the following scripture.

See my study "The Power of God: His Holy Spirit" for more information about this particular topic.

God’s Delegation

Why do I call this God’s delegation? I think of this as God delegating the specific affairs of our lives on ourselves. That is, we are in control of the things that we do (within God’s absolute will of course). Here God allows us to do things according to our own free will. You can see that this is related to God’s desire but it is quite different. Here God has neither a desire nor a specific intention. What we do is totally up to us unless there is a specific instance where God has to intervene. For example, it doesn’t matter to God what type of car you drive or what house you live in, etc.

This level of God’s will is where many Christians struggle. We tend to want God to tell us every little thing to do and to make all of the decisions pertaining to our life for us. Well if he won’t make the decision of salvation for you then why would you suppose that he would make trivial (though not necessarily trivial to you) decisions for you.

This level of God’s will (if I can call it that) is characterized by the absence of any real definite or revealed desire of God. He has left it up to us to decide. Keep in mind that our decisions DO NOT hinder God’s absolute will. What God purposes to do will be done and there is nothing that we can do about it. However, there are those things where God does give us the authority or the opportunity to make real decisions that will influence the outcome of situations in our own lives and possible the lives of others.

Prayer operates in this arena as well. We can pray that certain things happen. The mechanism of prayer is not evident here and is beyond the scope of this lesson. We will discuss the mechanism of prayer in a later study. Suffice it for me to say that we have the power of God within us and I believe that this power can be exercised in our daily lives as long as it is within the absolute will of God. We can ask God to do things for us and I would imagine that he would do it as long as it is within his absolute will and his desires for us in general. There are some scriptures that bring this point out as well as another point that I will make next.

God’s Will for Individuals

There are some that believe that God has a specific will for each and every person and there are some that believe the contrary. The evidence seem to imply that God does not have a specific will for each and every person. However, the Bible does show that God does have a specific will or purpose for certain individuals. Consider Moses, Abraham, Samuel, and even Jesus Christ for example. The Bible does not give any indication that God has a specific will or purpose for each individual. If this were true, I suppose, then either God purposed evil for some people (some people are just evil) or that God's individual will sometimes doesn’t get accomplished. Of course the latter violates the sovereignty of God and is therefore unacceptable.

If God doesn’t have a specific purpose for each individual then how can I know if I have a purpose and if I am fulfilling God’s purpose for my life? The former is rather simple. God’s desire for everyone is first to be saved. We discussed that earlier. The second is related to it. God desires that we transform into the image of Christ. Consider the following scriptures.

1 John 3:2 (NCV) Dear friends, now we are children of God, and we have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him, because we will see him as he really is.

So if we want to ensure that we fulfill a specific purpose of God for our life then all we have to do is get saved and live saved.

The later question of knowing when we are actually fulfilling God’s purpose is the subject of the next section. We will look at this topic from the perspective of prayer however.

Answered Prayer and Fulfilling God’s Will

If we pray according to God’s will then we will have what we ask (1 John 5:14-15). This means that we are actively pursuing and accomplishing God’s will. How do we know if we are praying according to God’s will. From our previous discussion you can see how crucial this is because it is up to us to know God’s will and we make our own decisions, with the guidance of God however. There are teachings that tell us that God’s desire for us is to prosper and be in good health. Others say that God desires humility and others have yet different opinions. What is the truth or more consistent with the Bible? Let’s see.

The Problem of Focus

I have studied the Bible a lot over the last 15 or so years. The Bible has influenced my life in a great way all of these years. I have begun to have a more bird’s eye view of the teachings in the Bible and that of the church (religious institutions not to be confused with the body of Christ). I believe that Christians do not pursue a relationship with God. Instead Christians pursue the things that God can provide. For this very reason, many prayers are not answered because the prayer is wrong from the beginning, that is the motive of the heart is misplaced because focus is misdirected. Consider the following scripture.

I love the New Century Version of the Bible (NCV). It is worded in such an understandable way. Anyway, you can see that our focus should be on God and his kingdom and not the things of the kingdom. If we focus on God and his kingdom then all of the other stuff will be provided. God desires us to know Him and not to use him like a grocery store or a genie in a bottle. However, the word of faith teachings do not promote the pursuit of a personal relationship with God. Instead the focus is on how to be prosperous or how to get healed and the like. Though these things are desirable and not evil or wrong in themselves, if they displace the pursuit of truth, namely God and his kingdom, then we have gone astray. What do you pursue? Do you pursue God or the things God can give you?

OK suppose you pursue God and His kingdom. What does that have to do with prayer? Very simple as I alluded to earlier. Pursuing a personal relationship with God will cause the word of God to flourish in your heart. Your mind will become transformed because of the genuine word of God in your heart and mind. Your actions will become more in line with God’s desires for mankind as it relates to Him. The word will transform you and therefore your desires. If your desires become in line with God’s desire—God’s will—then your prayers will be in line as well. Consider the following scriptures.

Do you see the common denominator in the above scriptures? They assume an active and prosperous relationship with God. The word abides in us, we delight in the Lord, if our heart doesn’t condemn us (considering that the heart contains the word of God—our righteous conscious), etc. If we pursue God by pursuing what He has already given us then we don’t have to worry about identifying his will. The only thing that we will need to do is live day by day and moment by moment as God guides and provides for us. We can live within his will by knowing and doing His word. We can live righteously by allowing the word of God that we have in our hearts and minds to become an integral part of our decision making process.

The Word of God

So prayer and the will of God go hand in hand with prayer and the word of God. Knowing God’s will is to know his word. We cannot depend on dreams, visions, small still voices, confirmation, or anything else outside of the word of God to direct our lives. These things may have their place in the whole scheme of things but they are not to supercede the word of God. The word of God establishes a boundary by which we live. It provides a "city wall" where we abide and live. Within this city are the rules of operation—the commandments of God, his precepts, his desires for us, and his provisions.

Therefore, answered prayer necessitates knowing the Word of God. We cannot pray according to God’s will if we don’t know His will, which he revealed to us in the scriptures. The scriptures are our primary source, and in some cases the only source, of insight into the will of God. The word of God revealed in the Bible supercedes church doctrine, personal opinion, religion, denominational teachings, etc. Do you obey the word of God or the teachings of your church? Do you have a zeal to know the word of God so you can live within his will or is it to be a member in good standing in your church or religious organization? Unfortunately many Christian’s desire and zeal is for church not Christ. Many Christians have succumbed to Churchianity instead of Christianity.

Application

How does all of this apply to us? What do we do know with the information given above. Here are some suggestions.

1. Study your Bible so that you know the word of God

2. Pray to God for wisdom concerning his word and thus his will (James 1:5)

3. Develop a personal and active relationship with God

4. Practice doing what you learn from the Word of God

5. Meditate and pursue the truths in God’s word

What will these accomplish? First they will cause you to become more and more close to your heavenly Father (See James 4:7-8). As your heart becomes more filled with God’s word, your mind and therefore your desires will conform to the will of God. However, consider that God has left some things up to us. If we want a new home then ask God and the Bible says he will give it to us. Of course the Bible also instructs us to work (do something). We can’t sit idly by assuming that God is going to drop the things that we want or need out of the sky.

It doesn’t matter to God what type of house you live in or what kind of car you drive. What matters to God is your spiritual state (are you saved?), and you living according to the principles of his kingdom. There may be specific things that God wants you to do, however he will make these clear. I recall a pastor telling me that we don’t have to wait for God to tell us what to do. All we have to do is live according to what God has placed in us. They care for the people and want to serve the people. A pastor is a shepherd and is wired by God to be such. So a pastor at heart doesn’t have to wait for God to say go pastor. A person only has to live day by day and moment by moment according to the direction of God both in the Bible and according to the decisions made by a godly mind transformed by the word of God.

Remember that to know God’s will is to know God’s word. So if you want to know what the will of God is for you then all you have to do is know what his word says, eat it and digest it and let it fill your heart and mind. Then you will act or operate in a manner dictated by the word. Your decisions will incorporate the desires of God. You will live to fulfill God’s desires, which is to conform to the image of His son Jesus Christ.