Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

His Way, Our Way, No Way Pt.3

Let's turn to Psalm 40:8. We want to continue along on this subject matter, "God's way, our way? No way." Have you come to that place, my way-no way? "I'm just not doing it my way anymore." Have you come to that place where you can rest in God's way and not our own, or as the classic Scripture says, "Not my will, but Your will be done." That really comes down to becoming agenda free. We don't have a plan. We have a direction, but we don't have a detailed plan. That's where most of us get into trouble. We try to refine the direction we're going in and we're not comfortable until we understand it and it's all defined and laid out and scheduled. That's not how you walk in faith, and that's not how God leads anybody. Most of the time as you're in God's will you won't know it clearly until after it has already gone by, and you'll say, "Ah, now I understand." Now, how many of you have found that to be true? Then why are you so uptight about this one? It's because we're human, isn't it? Even though we have the testimony of that and every time it happens we go "Oh, now I understand," and then we get into the unknown and we're all frightened again; we're all anxious and we're trying to figure it out and we're trying to get the pieces. We want to come into that natural comfort zone of being in control, understanding. That anxiety causes us to miss out on what Psalm 40:8 admonishes us to do. "I delight to do thy will, O my God." Let's say that a little different way this morning to help us understand the principle we're trying to come to. I delight in not knowing what's going on. I delight to be in situations that are beyond my control. I delight in walking by faith and not by sight. I delight in dying to my own ambitions and desires. I delight in trials and tribulations and persecutions and chastisement. Man! It sounds tougher that way, doesn't it? Instead of just "I delight to do thy will, O Lord." That's kind of cute. That's kind of romantic, but in reality it's what we were talking about in defining this a little clearer. The will of God being our sanctification--this is the will of God, even your sanctification, Thessalonians tells us. The will of God, to be persecuted for well doing, Peter tells us in 1 Peter, is many times very, very frightening. The will of God becomes a cup that we want to shy away from. As Jesus said, "Father, if it's possible that I could be brought to the fulfilling of our eternal purpose any other way, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but Your will be done" (Matthew 26:39).

If you think somehow it's going to be easy, it's not. Coming into the will of God, coming into the character of God, fulfilling the eternal purposes of God is a daily warfare. That's why Jesus admonished us to take up our cross daily and follow Him. We talked about what that cross was. That cross wasn't just trials and circumstances. It's death to self, personal agenda, self-will, pride, all of these different things. And so, the psalmist speaking here says, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." He begins to tell us there how we're going to come to this as a practical reality. David cried out, "Your law, Your Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against You." The sin is in not trusting in God. The sin is in leaning to the natural understanding. We're going to go over to Romans 12 in just a moment and look at that passage that we're all very familiar with. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world [methods, the world's system, be not conformed to the natural mind, be not conformed to the weapons of Egypt]: but be ye transformed [metamorphosis] by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1-2). "Your law have I hid in my heart." The Word of God is the only thing that can strengthen the heart, enabling it to control the mind, to bring every thought into subjection to the will or the Word of God. No Word--no subjection, no transformation of mind from the natural methods. If we don't have the living Word hidden in our heart we're going to sin against God by trusting in the natural, trusting in our own ability, being no different than the nations that are around us. We're being called to delight in God's method. Part of that delighting then is in the delighting in the Word of God, daily feeding ourselves. "I delight to do your will, O God. Your Word have I hid in my heart."

The Word of God, alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. This Word that is able to divide asunder between soul and spirit, this Word that is a discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. Most of us think our intentions are usually pretty good, don't we? But what about when you put it up against the Word of God? How many of you have found that in the presence of the Word of God, the glory of God, that you see that some of your motives were not as pure as you thought they were, some of your methods were not as free from humanism, secularism as you thought they were? We were trusting more in the natural than we thought we were? We were looking more for natural treasures than we thought we were? How much are you feeding yourself the Word of God, this mirror that we can look into, as James says, and not forget what manner of man we really are? You see, if we're going to be able to walk in the will of God, if we're going to be able to walk free from the bondage of this world's methods and system and treasures, it's going to be in direct proportion to how much we feed ourselves the Word of God and then obey it. Not head knowledge, "To be a hearer of the Word and not a doer," James says," is to deceive ourselves." "I delight to do your will, O God." "Obedience to Your Word is my standard." It's a delighting process and we were talking about the fact that many of us do the Word out of obligation. We do the Word out of fear. Some of us, frankly, obey because we don't want to be chastened. We don't want to be judged. How many of us do the Word of God because we don't want to go to Hell? That's not a good enough reason. That's a primary motivation. We understand that there is justice and righteousness and holiness. We understand that there's a consequence to rebellion and remaining in the kingdom of darkness, and that is Hell. It's the natural consequence of self-will, self-reliance, the Adamic nature remaining in control in our lives. The natural consequence to that is Hell. You can be the most moral person on this planet. You can keep the Ten Commandments. You can fulfill all of the rules and laws of religions and the world and go to Hell, because you're doing it in your own strength. You're trusting in your own ability, and we're not relying on the finished work of Jesus Christ. If that's the ultimate thing that separates us from the will of God or from the presence of God, not our behavior but our mindset, who we are trusting in, what we're trusting in, then we need to guard ourselves as professed believers that we're not living over in this other realm, but delighting in the finished work of Jesus, pursuing things and loving things that we used to hate and hating things that we used to love. Why? Because it's natural. It's who we are now. It's our character.

Now, we've shared that with you many times. I'll say it again. That doesn't mean that there's not the propensity to go this other direction, because sin is in our members. Every one of us battles with it on a daily basis. The fact that you have the appetite for that isn't the problem. The real question is this. Do you have an appetite for spiritual things? Are you a regenerated man? Are you a renewed man? I delight to do Your will. I pant for Your Word or Your presence as the hart does the brook. What am I saying? How much do you want God this morning? Taste and see that the Lord is good. "I found You're Word and I ate it and it became the joy and the rejoicing of my heart." Do you love the presence of God and have an appetite for it the same way that your flesh has an appetite for the world? This appetite for the world is never going to go away. Now, that's not good news to those who aren't living in the spirit and walking in the counsel of God's Word. It's never going to go away. The good news is this: It can be crucified, destroyed, Romans 6 says, or a better way of saying it, it can be put under the dominion of the new man, the spirit man. "The body of sin is destroyed, made ineffective henceforth we are no longer slaves or servants to sin." Is that where we are today in the will of God? I delight to do Your will, O God. I'm delighting to move out of this confidence in the flesh to this walk in the spirit.

Psalm 143, and this will be the last little bit of our review and then I'll want to get into the point this morning, verse 10: "Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness." We talked about the need to understand the goodness of God. We can never be confident of walking in this unknown realm until we know that God's end for us is good. He's a good God. "He's gooder than good." He's infinitely good. Okay, let's stop and think about that for just a moment. Whatever your understanding of good is, that's not good enough. Think of the furthest your mind can go in the goodness of one person to another. And we're not just talking about love. We're talking about goodness. We're talking about involvement in our life that everything that's done is for our well being. Someone being good to me is more concerned with my well being than anything personally that they're involved in at the moment. Goodness being shown to us is really what all of us want. We want it from a perverted perspective of pride and selfishness, but we all want good done to us. Don't you want people to be good to you? Don't you want to walk out of here today and have forty, fifty people out there saying, "God bless you. Here's $100.00. Here's a new car." Thank you. I appreciate that. " Here's some new clothes." People complimenting you. "Nice hair you have, both of them." That's to some of us guys. We want to be doted upon and we want to be told how great we are and we want things to be given toward us, and we want people to love us and appreciate us and look out for our well being. We want people to be understanding that we're not perfect and when we mess up they still love us. It doesn't change our relationship at all. They're good toward us, compassionate, gentle, kind, merciful, loving, giving, doting, accommodating, caressing, companionship. Who in your life has treated you the best of anybody you know? Now what many people would say is, whoever has treated you the best, whenever you've been treated the best by any person, many people will say if you want to compare it that's "1" on the scale and God's "100." Not so. God's not on that scale. He's in another realm. You will never comprehend the love that God has for you, the goodness that He intends for you. Why don't we trust Him? Why don't we believe that His way is better than ours, that what He's really working in us right now is for our good and His glory? Isn't that something, how God can do both? God can make it specifically good for you and yet bring glory to Him if we'll die to ourselves. That's part of what's going on here. "Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good." Teach me. It's a process. Show me where I'm missing this thing. Basically, where we're missing it is, we keep crawling off the altar of Romans 12. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service. Be not conformed to this world." We're being admonished daily just to present our bodies. Present our bodies. "Offer yourself up." "Take up your cross daily." "Follow Me." "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me." "I am meek and lowly of heart." "My yoke is easy." "My burden is light." "Learn of Me." And so, the admonition is always, "Come and find out who I am. Come and commune with Me. Come and let Me caress you and bring you into My heart so that you can see that there's another way." "You need to understand something. My ways are not your ways. My ways are higher than yours. My ways are better than yours. My ways are incomprehensible to you. Don't try to understand them, just delight in them." "I don't know what God is doing. Everything looks bad, but it's good, praise God!" Amen? Here we are being called to these situations.

The classic, of course--turn over to Genesis for just a second. I don't know about you but I can never get enough of this story in Genesis, Chapter 39. We'll just go over it real quick. Everybody here knows it, but it so clearly defines what we're talking about in delighting in the will of God. Walking as Abraham did by faith, not knowing where he was going. He forsook everything. He didn't know where he was going and was following God. I don't want to get off on the story of Abraham, but it's the same with all of the great men of God. Abraham, the father of our faith, following God, not knowing where he was going, received the promise of God, the inheritance is at hand. The promise was given. And then it didn't manifest when he thought it would. Look, we're talking about Abraham. We weren't going to do that, but we are. Abraham didn't understand and then God gave the promise but it didn't come in the time and the way that he thought it was going to come. So, what did he do and what do you do so many times? He took it into his own hands, didn't he? And he figured out, "Well what we need to do since Sarah's womb is dead, God has made a promise we have to somehow make the promise of God come to pass. We have to make God look good in our lives. God made a promise. It has to be fulfilled." Do you know what most of us would say? Listen to me. I'm going to help you with something. Most of us would say, "Well, you know my motive for doing this. God made a promise and my motive for doing this is so that people would see that God answers prayer and that God is real." And really your motive for doing it was to prove to yourself that God is real, because you're doubting right now. So, we have to make something happen here. Surely this is what God meant. Surely God is going to use me to bring about His will and His glory. And so, Sarah gives him Hagar. Ishmael is conceived. "Bless Ishmael, O Lord." And God said, "I'll temporally bless him, but you're not getting the picture. Sarah is going to conceive." So what did God have to do? Sarah's womb was dead. She couldn't conceive. Abraham still had some life in him. So he messes up with Hagar. So God says well, there's only one thing to do. We have to let old Abe die. Now you're both dead. He's dried up. Sarah laughs, "Shall I being old have pleasure of my lord?" What did old have to do with it? You were dead when you were young. We get the natural involved in this so much. You couldn't conceive when you were young. What does old have to do with it? We want explain things from the natural, but reality is--young or old--is anything to hard for the Lord?

Now, we're not talking about your agenda this morning. Some of your minds have crept back to your agenda. "Oh, yeah, I'm believing God for this and I'm believing God for that." Stop believing God for stuff! Just start believing God. Shall I say that again? Stop believing God for stuff, things that you've invented. I believe this is the will of God. Stop and just say, "Lord lead me into the paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. Lord, I delight to do Your will. Lord, the steps of the good man are ordered by You and I delight in the path that You have me on right now." I don't have a clue what's good for me, so I'm not even going to bother asking. But this is the will of God, my sanctification. Make me more holy. Make me more free from myself. Make me a witness. Make me the light of the world. Make me the salt of the earth. Make me the servant of all." And then watch what God does. Amen? And delight in the path. See most of our prayers are self-initiated. We're praying for what we think God ought to do. We just need to say, "Lord, I delight to do Your will."

We can get messed up like Abraham. Joseph, now the Scripture says, Chapter 39, and Joseph was brought down into Egypt. We know the story. His brothers were jealous of him. He didn't use the greatest wisdom of all, did he? He'd go to his brothers and he'd say, "God just gave me this great dream. And guess what? You'll never believe it. One of these days you all are going to bow down to me." That's not a good thing to tell your older brothers. They're going to beat you up. It got to the place where they said, "We're going to kill this guy." One of the brothers said, "No, we can't kill him, that wouldn't be right. Let's sell him. Let's make a profit off of him." Thank God for those that are concerned for our lives. Amen? He's bragging about what God is going to do and his brothers didn't like it and his dad said, "Now you know, it could be God, boys. Don't get carried away." And he said, "And that's not all, Dad, you're going too." And he said, "Okay, son, now you've gone over the line here." We understand the story. He's delivered and they throw him into the pit and sell him into Egypt. Now he comes into Egypt and he comes into Potiphar's house and then this great passage in verse 2. Look at it, Chapter 39, verse 2, "And the Lord was with Joseph." I love that! I can't tell you how many times I go back and look at that. I can't tell you how many times I've been out there not knowing where I'm going, how many times I'm thinking, "Lord, there is no way out of this one." How many times--"Lord, what in the world? There's no solution here." But I'm not alone; the Lord is with me. I'm where God wants me. He sent me here, and however this thing turns out it's going to be for the glory of God. "But one thing is for sure, the three Hebrew children said, we're not going to worship you, Satan." "We're not going to worship your world system. I believe God's going to deliver me, but if He doesn't, I'm dying in faith. I'm not doing it your way. I am not bowing my knee to the flesh, to humanism, to secularism, to Satanism is what it is, because my God is good. And everything that's manifesting in my life will work for good if I don't faint, if I'll just delight in Him and boast in Him. And though I die, I'm going to trust Him."

Well, here's Joseph and it says the Lord was with him and preserved and he prospered. And so we know the story, the ups and downs of the life of Joseph. They're going to kill him; he's delivered from death. Thrown into a pit and sold. Do you ever feel like your life's going that way? Man, it looks like I'm going to die! Oh, praise God! They're not going to kill me. I'm sold into slavery. I wish they had killed me. Hey, I'm prospering in Potiphar's house. God is with me. Betrayed by Potiphar's wife. Back in prison. God prospers him. Interprets the dream. Hey, we'll say a good word for you when we get out. They forget you. Forsaken of men again, promises aren't fulfilled. Then, "Oh yeah, there's this guy in prison that can interpret dreams." You're brought out. You interpret the dream. Now you're delivered. Now you're second only by the fact that you don't sit on the throne. Now you're running Egypt. What a powerful statement that is, in Chapter 41, verse 40: "Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou." Why? Verse 38: "Because this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is." What an interesting life. Is it only about Joseph? Is everything that's happening in this guy's life about Joseph, him getting blessed and prospered? Praise God! Can you see from this story, it's not about you? It's not about you. This thing ends up--we all know it but I like the wording. Look at Chapter 45. After all of this has taken place, he's now on the throne, his brothers come down. There's a famine. They come to Egypt to be preserved and lo and behold who's in charge of Egypt but Joseph. How would you like to have been the brothers? Isn't it interesting how people judge you out of their own heart? They're thinking, "Oh, dear Lord we come down here and who's in charge of everything? The guy we were going to kill. We're dead meat!" But, you see, this is a guy who had encountered God. This is the guy who wasn't living for himself. This is a guy who had already died. This is a man that has victory over ego. This is a man that can return good for evil. This is a man without an agenda. This is a man that walked with God, a man who through that whole refining process experienced the will of God, even your sanctification. Don't you want to be like him? Don't you want to be able to return good for evil? Don't you want to be able to live free?

Now he still moved in wisdom. He made the great decision to preserve them in famine and to save up in the years of abundance. We learn from him that prosperity and God's provision isn't just so that we can squander anytime we want and then whenever we need something, He'll dump it on us. He was wise. He saved up. He took in the abundant times and put it away. Why? The Scripture tells us very clearly. Verse 3: "They were troubled at his presence. [I'll say. He made himself known unto them, verse 1 and they were troubled.] Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, [I bet they weren't expecting that. Don't be angry with yourselves. You're just flesh. You're just normal folk. You're always messing up. It's always about you. You're no different than the majority of people. So don't be upset with yourself] that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. [You want to come to that revelation? That everything that's working in you right now is for the glory of God, for preservation of life, for reaching someone for the kingdom.] For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, [left].... And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, [look at verse 8. Here's what you've got to come to understand, beloved] So now it was not you that sent me hither, [say it] but God."

There are some people here this morning who have still not forgiven people in your lives. It wasn't them. It's God giving you that opportunity to die to yourself. I'd say it's time to forgive this morning. That guy didn't fire you. God fired you. That guy didn't burglarize your house. God allowed that to happen. That makes you mad. You know, when our house was burglarized that really ticked me off. When people come and do that kind of stuff. A guy stole our jeep out there and wrecked it. They went joy riding and then drove it off a cliff, or pushed it off. It might have been better if they had driven it off. Do you believe that your steps are ordered? Do you believe that all things are working together for good by God? Now, I don't want to get into the intricacies of sovereignty, and when I say God did these things I should take some time and explain a little further in detail here, but I'm not going to. I don't want to bog us down. There are the two major camps that you know about that we've taught about before of Calvinism and Arminianism that have basic understandings of the sovereignty of God. I happen to believe that God is absolutely, totally sovereign and in His sovereign choice He gave man free will. And man's free will operates under the ultimate control of and for the purpose of God's eternal purposes because of His eternal being and His foreknowledge, but not necessarily predetermination. You all understand that, right? I don't. But to be best of our ability as we look at this we see then that things that appear to be happening in our lives, things that appear to be done at random by free will are either allowed or initiated by God who is ultimately sovereign, but from His perspective of eternity and because of His eternal being and His omniscience He knows from the eternal, which allows Him to involve Himself in time and space without predetermining it. You all understand that right? And so, we rest in that. Ultimately say God is in control. We present it in a way that really makes your head hurt; and you think and think and then you just come back and simplify it and say, "God is in control." That's easier to understand. He could stop it. If He chose not to then He allowed it for a purpose and the purpose will ultimately reveal itself. That's what's happening here. Not everything that happened in Joseph's life could he sit there and say at the moment, this is good. This is good. Praise God! It's good to be hated of my brothers and sold as a slave. This is fun. It's great to be betrayed, in prison, ridiculed, and defamed. We don't say that. I don't sit there and say, "Oh, I just love people defaming me and saying all manner of evil against me. That's so enjoyable." I don't like it, but it's ultimately going to work for God's good.

And so I delight in His will. And I'm given biblical license to pray this way: "Lord if it's possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but Your will be done." It could be possible when we pray and God would say, "Okay, we'll lighten this thing up. We'll take it in another direction. I'm looking for your heart to do My will." Look at this: "It was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt." "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due time He will exalt you." Exaltation isn't necessarily ruling Egypt. It's ruling your own life; it's being free from self. If you'll humble yourself to the will of God you'll be free from self and God can be glorified in that. Then and only then are you free to help your brethren.

Father, we thank You this morning for Your Word. We do delight to do Your will. We don't understand it. Joseph, for years and years didn't have a clue and then he said, "Now I see what God is doing. It was for this reason, to preserve life that God sent me here."

Isn't it amazing when the light bulb finally goes off? And then we go, "Oh, praise God! Now I see. This is the will of God." It was always the will of God. You just got a glimpse of it. When did it become good? When did it become the will of God? When Joseph understood it, or through the whole process? You see, for it to be good, right and just, doesn't require your understanding, your seal of approval, your acknowledgement. So here we are resting on the promise that the steps of the good man are ordered by God, that we've been called to delight in His will, that His Spirit is good, eternally, infinitely good. I can't understand that. An absolutely unselfish, all-powerful, all-loving, eternal, infinite being pouring goodness without measure into my life, but in the natural it doesn't always appear to be good. It doesn't always feel good. But it's ultimate purpose and end is my good.

And for that I say thank You, Father, for loving me and working Your good pleasure in me, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand before the Lord this morning. Take a moment as Gary plays for us and we just allow these truths to settle into our spirit, just rejoice in the love that Father has for you this morning. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will not leave you comfortless. He'll do exceeding abundant above anything that you can ask or even think for your good. Are you still too headstrong this morning to let go of your agenda? Are you going to still try to manipulate and demand your ways and your rights, or are you going to let God have His way in your life? The refusal to do so is to judge God not good, to judge Him just like yourself. His ways are not your ways. Let's sing this together and worship Him this morning. You are, Lord, so good. "Lord ,You Are So Precious to Me" Yes, Lord!

Hallelujah! Father, thank you for Your love. Help us just to receive that that's being so freely given to us. Forgive us of the times we try to earn it. Forgive us of the times we despise it. Just help us, Father, to commune in the Spirit with You and to hear Your heartbeat, to imbibe Your love and freely give what we've received. Help us to emulate You, to represent You to Your glory, Father, we ask in Jesus' name. Hallelujah! We receive that, Father. Amen.

Before you go turn to the person next to you and say, "Delight in His will." Amen. Go in peace. God's love go with you.

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