Making Godly Decisions
Tom Shrader teaches that making godly decisions involves three key elements: knowing God's Word as final authority, listening to the Holy Spirit, and seeking counsel from godly people. He challenges the traditional evangelical view that God has one specific, knowable will for every decision, arguing instead that Scripture teaches God's sovereign will and moral will, but not an individual blueprint for life. Shrader encourages believers to make decisions within God's moral boundaries with freedom and joy, rather than anxiously searching for one 'perfect' path.
“A lot of people believe in God, but as it comes time to live life, not many people believe God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2001)
Recorded: February 08, 2001
Duration: 42 min
Themes: decisions, guidance, wisdom, authority, discernment, freedom, counsel, direction, making life choices, seeking direction, young adult, new believer, feeling confused, parent, mentor, struggling with decisions
Scripture: Psalm 119, Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 17, Colossians 1:9-10, Acts 2:22-24
Theological Themes: biblical authority, holy spirit, sanctification, gods will, moral law, spiritual discernment, christian liberty, divine guidance
Full Transcript
I hope you get a sense that this is one of those series where each lesson indeed does stand alone, but there is a logical progression to what we're doing. It's also stuff that I'm putting together, so some weeks I have the overhead, some weeks I don't. Some weeks I have the handout, some weeks I don't, so I apologize for that, but I'm trying to really develop a progression here—a progression of thought under the umbrella title of "How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World."
The idea there—the word "crooked"—is not a world that's corrupt, although it is. It's how to stay on track in a world that's lost its direction. I did a men's conference three or four years ago, and the first night the guy that was leading had everybody stand up. He said, "Okay, I'm going to count to three, and when I count to three, I want you to all point to true north." So one, two, three—and there were guys poking each other in the face and the eyes, and there were hands going in every direction. It's just disorienting.
He said, "Now there's a little envelope in your packet. Take out that little brown envelope, open it up. There's an object in there—take it out, put it in your hand in front of you." It was a compass. He said, "Let it rest. Now I'm going to count to three. When I count to three, all of you point to true north." One, two, three—and all the hands went in the same direction.
That's a great illustration of what we're talking about. In a world that's going like this and poking each other's eyes out—who even maybe for a short period of time would agree that this is the way we ought to go—but even once those value systems or priorities or whatever they are, once they're set, they seem to change right away. How do I find stability in the midst of that? I think there is a craving and a yearning that we see in society for that.
The Foundation: Scripture as Final Authority
Here's what we said the first week: you establish the Bible as the final authority in your life. There has to be something that when it speaks, that settles it. That's the end of it, and for us, that's the Bible. We believe that when you hold the Bible in your hand, you have the Word of God.
That is so important for us—so important for us to understand, so important for us to comprehend and to embrace that indeed, that's the Word of God. Because if God said it, that settles it, and really the argument for us is over. So that when we have to figure out issues in life, we go to the Word of God.
The Process: Lifelong Learning
Here's what we said the second week: develop a lifelong passion for learning. Now obviously that has to do with learning the Word of God, but it's all of life. There was not long ago a Chet Atkins special on, and he's kind of a low-key guy. He was just picking and doing his deal, and he sold like five billion albums or something.
So they're talking to Chet Atkins, who's like the godfather of the guitar, and this guy knows everything. He's not exactly Jimi Hendrix, but he can do some things anyway. So they're talking to him and he said—and I quote—"I'm still learning to play the guitar." That's exactly the point we're trying to make to you: whatever your field of expertise is, I'm continually learning in that area.
So it's in all areas of life where information is exploding around us. We said—I don't know how they figure these things out, I love this kind of stuff though—where they say all the body of information we have is actually doubling every five years. I came across some great statistics the other day: two-thirds of the people since the beginning of time who have lived to age 65—two-thirds of those people are alive today. Incredible statistic.
Here's my favorite new one: of the girls born last year—of the girls born in the year 2000—50% of them will live to see 2100. That's an incredible statistic. So things are changing, things are growing, things are expanding, and we continue to learn.
Moving from Theory to Practice
Now the logical progression of that is where we pick up today. The Bible is the final authority of our life. We continue to learn. Here's the third thing: make godly decisions. That's what we're going to talk about this morning. Make godly decisions. We might say make good decisions, but when we say make good decisions, we're saying make godly decisions.
So here's what we're doing. We're saying, "Okay, now in a sense we've got these things that we know, we've got this Word of God. Now we're going to move from theory to action."
Here's just a general observation I have, and it may not apply to you specifically, but I'll bet it applies to a lot of you: a lot of people believe in God, but as it comes time to live life, not many people believe God. A lot of people believe in God. They'll go ahead and they'll acknowledge that Jesus is who He said He was, and they'll put all these things together, and they'll go ahead and say, "I really believe in God." But when it comes time now to live life, they don't believe God.
When God said, "I will meet all your needs. Do not worry. Don't be anxious for anything. I'm there"—we believe in Him, but now it's to believe Him. What I find in a lot of churches and with a lot of Christians is although they are professing faith in Christ, they are practical atheists. In other words, they believe in God, but now it's time to see Him work, and they'll say, "Well, I don't really trust Him." In other words, they live as though He doesn't exist at all.
The Critical Importance of Godly Decisions
What we're saying is now I need to make decisions based on what I continue to learn and based on God's Word. Now it's time for me to take the theory and to put it into action. So that's what we're going to talk about today.
The importance of this, in my mind anyway, is something I see all day long. I meet with men and women all day long who are in awful situations, who are in terrible predicaments, and almost always because they chose to be there. They may not have chosen that exact conclusion, but they chose an action path that dictated a problem ultimately in their life.
The other day I hadn't heard from him in a while and we were getting caught up. He said, "I don't know if you heard about me or what happened to me," and I said no. He started to talk about it and he said, "It's all my fault. I knew what I was supposed to do and I didn't do it, and I brought all this on." That's what we see all the time. Most of the people that we see that come into us and they've got some pain or some suffering or some difficulty—it's decisions that they've made in their life.
When we're dealing with our kids, I'll bet when you're dealing with your kids too, do you understand that the decisions you make today have long-term consequences? There seems to be a rash of kids who are saying I don't want to go to college. When I was a teenager and you were getting out of high school, it was a given you were going to go to college. In fact, you kind of wanted to go even though you didn't want to actually do any of the work.
I remember my interview with admissions. I went through the whole thing and they said, "You have any questions?" I said, "Just one. What grade point do you need to graduate?" They said 2.0, and for the first time in my life I had a goal. That was my goal—I didn't always achieve it, I was on and off probation a lot—but at least we knew you had to go.
The Long-Term Consequences of Our Choices
There are a lot of kids right now, and you may have your kids and grandkids who are coming out of high school right now, and they may be 3.5 students or whatever, but college doesn't hold an interest for them. When I'm talking to them I'm saying, "Listen, you got to understand something here. Even if it is just a game and even if it is just a waste of time in your mind, you're making a decision that has long-term consequences. I know a company where I can get you a job tomorrow, but if you don't have a degree, I can't get you an interview. You need to understand these things."
I remember probably five or six years ago—maybe longer than that—Susan and I sitting down with the guy that was doing financial planning for us, trying to make sure we were okay. Our goal was to spend our last dollar and take our last breath at the same time. Susan and I did not want to go in, we were not excited about going in because Susan was afraid of the B-word. You know what that is? Budget.
He was really great. He said, "I guarantee you there'll be no budget. There'll be a spending plan." I said, "What's the difference?" "Well, it's not a budget." Her fear was, "I'll be doing two-for-one on Tide and Cheer and save all this money, and then at the end of six months you'll buy a new set of irons and we'll lose it all." I understand exactly what she was saying.
When we were all done with this, when we came in for the follow-up meeting, the guy said, "Let me tell you something. You guys are really in pretty good shape." I said, "Well, how did we get here?" He said, "You know, you've just made some really good decisions about debt, about your house and housing and things." Now I always use illustrations like that carefully because it sounds self-serving. I don't mean that. I'm just saying we knew when we were at Cobo Bank and we thought we might be in a ministry position, we knew we better not encumber ourselves with debt. We better not get the house that we could afford. Those kinds of decisions, because the decisions you make today are going to affect how you live tomorrow.
How God Influences Our Decisions
So we're talking about making godly decisions. What we're talking about is how does God influence your decision? I'm in a car one day with Sarah—Sarah's ten years old at the time. I said, "Sarah, does God speak to you?" She said yes. I said, "How does God speak to you?" She said, "He speaks through His word, the Bible. He speaks through the Holy Spirit and He speaks through other people." I thought, man, that's pretty incredible for a ten-year-old.
This is a true story. About a week later I said, "Sarah, does God speak to you?" She said, "No, I don't think so." It's real interesting. It was almost like God used that moment to speak.
He speaks in three ways. First is through His word. When you've got this word of God in your hand, you have the mind of God. When you want to know what God thinks, all you have to do is look to this word and it will tell you.
The Power of God's Word
Let me read to you a little bit about what God says about this word. Psalm 119 is the longest of the Psalms—I'm not sure, but I believe it's the longest chapter in the scripture. I'm just going to read you parts of it so you get a sense of what God is saying:
"Our Lord, you bless everyone who lives right and obeys your law. I will do what is right and praise you by learning to respect your perfect laws. I will obey all of them. Don't turn your back on me. I will treasure your word above all else and keep me from sinning against you. I will praise you Lord. Teach me your laws. With my own mouth I will tell others of your laws. Obey your instruction and that brings forth happiness. I will study your teachings and follow your footsteps. I'll take pleasure in your law and remember your word."
Verse 18: "Open my mind and let me discover the wonders of your law. What I want most at all times is to honor your law."
Verse 31: "I'll follow your rules Lord. Don't let me be ashamed."
That's just a smattering of that one chapter where God says through His word that it's in His law, in His precepts, in the scripture, in the Old and New Testament, we'll discover the mind of God. So clearly if you're going to make good decisions, if you're going to make godly decisions, you've got to study God's word, know God's word, and apply it.
Here's the second thing: we said God speaks through...
I'll make a little confession to you. I think that for guys like me, we talk a lot about the Lord Jesus. We talk a lot about God the Father. But probably not near enough about the Holy Spirit. There are in my mind such perversions in the Christian community of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works that some of us on the more evangelical conservative line have tended to move away from the Holy Spirit lest there be confusion.
We don't believe that there are three gods. We believe that there's one God who manifests Himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Remember in Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira? They bring the gift and it's only a partial gift, but they represent it as being the whole proceeds of a sale. They bring it and lay it down at Peter's feet, and they've withheld. They haven't told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And Peter says to them, "Why have you lied against the Holy Spirit? Why have you lied against God?" He tells us the Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit's Work in Your Life
The Holy Spirit plays an important role in your life if you're a Christian today. If you know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, here's why: it's because the Holy Spirit regenerated you. The Holy Spirit gave you eyes to see.
There's an important passage—I'm not going to read it but make a note of it if you would—in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul gives you the secret to some of the frustration you have spiritually as you share your faith. You ever had that? You're sitting down with somebody from the office. You're sitting down with a gal from the club. You're having a cup of coffee and all of a sudden you're talking to this person. You're a Christian and they aren't, and as you're talking to them, you're pouring your heart out and you can see that they're kind of not responding.
All of a sudden you pull something out of your past, something that really made sense to you—a piece of scripture, a spiritual truth—and you say, "This is the thing that's going to close the deal." You lay it out there and you just let it sit and you wait for that dramatic effect. All of a sudden they look you right in the eye and they say, "Think it's going to rain? It'll be a hot summer." And you think, "How did it happen? What happened here?"
Understanding Spiritual Things
First Corinthians 2:14 tells you what happens. It says the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. The natural man—that's a man, woman, boy, girl who doesn't know Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. If they have not believed in Christ, they don't have the Holy Spirit in them. So you might as well talk to this lamp. They got no chance. You're speaking and there's no decoder in there. They can't get it.
So all of a sudden you remember the day, you remember the place where you were, you remember the moment when all of a sudden you understood Jesus Christ was the creator God of the universe and that He died on the cross for you. That became clear to you. You know what happened at that moment? At that moment the Holy Spirit came in and gave you eyes to see. You were blind and now you can see.
The Holy Spirit Indwells You
Let me tell you something else the Holy Spirit does: the Holy Spirit indwells you. When we say God is in this room today, we don't mean in some floating around kind of thing or some pantheistic idea that says He's in the rail, He's in all material things. We know that God indwells the believer. This is one of my—He is more dwelling. We are temples for the Holy Spirit.
One day my mentor Larry and I are down at about Central and Palm Lane and it's kind of a warm day, summer day. We're sitting there in the car, and we're kind of talking. He's driving and all of a sudden I notice there's a young woman walking across the street, and I see that she is a very attractive woman. So I don't want to be caught looking, and so I know Larry's there. I don't want to look at her, but now she's right in front of the car. You can't miss her and she's very attractive.
I notice Larry's kind of looking. Finally there's just dead silence in the car, and finally, being the spiritual giant that he is, he said, "What a temple, what a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit." Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, Larry, right there. But that's the principle: that the Holy Spirit indwells you.
The Holy Spirit as Your Power Source
The Holy Spirit is the power source in your life. There's a moment where Jesus is saying goodbye to the disciples—again, a passage you should read, you should be familiar with—John chapter 17, the gospel of John, 17th chapter. When somebody says to you, "Let's pray the Lord's Prayer," you say to them, "Well, that would be John 17." This "Our Father who art in heaven," that's not the Lord's Prayer. That's where He said to the disciples, "This is how you ought to pray." Where Jesus really prays is in John 17.
It's the night before He's going to die and He said, "Father, I know that this is over. I've accomplished all that You've given me." In the midst of this, here's what He says: He says, "I pray not for the whole world. I pray for these that are here and those that would believe in me." You know, think about this for a second: that night, if you're a Christian, that night Jesus prayed for you. Here's what He prayed: "Father, not that You take them out of the world, but You leave them in the world and You sanctify them with Your word."
During that emotional time, that important time where Jesus is saying goodbye to the disciples, in the middle of this He says, "I'm leaving, and it's for your own good. You're better off that I'm gone." Isn't that funny? All we think about is if we could be with Jesus, that's the ultimate. If we could somehow be with Him, that's everything.
When I was sitting with this man on Tuesday night, he said, "When I go to sleep, they tell me I won't wake up. I am—I will, Tom, I'll be with—I will be with Jesus." I can't emphasize enough.
You should have seen his face. He literally beamed. He literally just smiled. There's no animosity. There's no fear. I said, "Doc, are you afraid?" He said, "Not at all. I'm anxious. I'm torn because I'm going to say goodbye to my family and my kids and my grandkids. But I'm so anxious because I will be with Jesus."
Well for us, we say that's everything. When He's with the disciples, He said, "I'm going to leave and you're better off that I'm gone." Now why does He say that? Because He says, "I'm going to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit." See, that's the power of the Holy Spirit that you have. God speaks to you through His Word. God speaks to you through the Holy Spirit. God speaks to you through other people.
The Necessity of Community
The thing that's become really clear to me is that for us to live the Christian life, we have to be in contact with other people. The Great Commandment—we looked at it last week—love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Well, I can't fulfill the Great Commandment if I don't have contact with other people. The Great Commission: go and make disciples. Well, I can't begin to go and make disciples if all I do is come.
I see it as an alarming trend. I see a lot of Christians who are getting together in their own little Christian ghetto. All they got is Christian music and Christian books and Christian kids and Christian parents and Christians. It's all Christians and it's just a bunch of Christians hanging around, and pretty soon it's inbred. That's a very scary thing because God did not design the Christian life to be lived either in isolation or to be lived only among Christians.
Remember Jesus' prayer: "God, I'm not praying that you take them out of the world." He said you and I are to be salt and light. How can I be salt or how can I be light if I don't have contact with people who are lost?
The "One Another" Commands
When you begin to look at how you're supposed to live, go through—you've got a concordance—many of you look up the phrase "one another" and pull those "one anothers" out of the New Testament and look at what we're told to do: love one another, encourage one another, rebuke one another, pray for one another, confess our sins to one another, help one another, feed one another, encourage. It just goes on and on and on.
That's why we talk to you so much about the idea of a mentor. If you're going to make—remember our context here—godly decisions, if you're going to make godly decisions, you have to have godly people around you. Some of you have been at this Christian life a long time, and you ought to be in a position where you are a mentor.
Finding a Mentor
Now maybe you're running around and you're looking for a mentor. Well, here's what you want to find. You want to find somebody who shares your faith, somebody who has the same belief system that you do. You have to find somebody who is willing to spend time with you. You have to find somebody who's going to be willing to dump their life into you, to be available to you.
So there needs to be in their life some level of transparency. They have to be willing to share the struggles that they're having and the hardship they're having. And then lastly, I think they ought to be like-minded—they see life the same way. They enjoy the same movies as you do.
One of the things to me about mentoring is you have to hang out. It's pretty hard to mentor somebody you don't like. You've got to hang out—same habits, same hobbies.
Choosing a Protégé
Now, maybe you're here and you're one of these guys and you've been around. You're saying, "I'm looking for a protégé. I'm looking for somebody I can mentor." I get this, but right now my dance card's full. But I'll get guys who will come and say, "Will you be my mentor?"
To me, here's what I'm looking for in a protégé. In a protégé, this is really important. Some of you are trying—because you only got so much time, you only got so many bullets to fire—you don't want to be wasting them. So you want to dump your time into somebody that you think might pay off at the end.
Here's what you're looking for: a guy that shares your faith. A guy that has a desire to learn. If you give a guy an assignment and he doesn't get it done, then what's the point? A guy that's coachable. There's nothing—I'll tell you, there's nothing that to me is a bigger thrill than you get a young guy, you begin to teach him, and then he's got a decision to make and you tell him what to do. He spends 40 minutes trying to debate with you why not to do it and all the other options, which is fine and dandy. But in the end you say, "This is what you're going to do," and a week later he says, "I did it." Coachable.
Since I've met with Larry, I've done virtually everything he's told me to do. The only thing Larry told me to do that I didn't do is he told me never to start a church. Other than that, I've done everything that he's ever told me to do.
Commitment vs. Interest
Here you go: a guy that's committed. I find a lot of guys that say, "You know what? I'd like to get together." I'll say, "Well, when?" "Well, can you come by my office like this Tuesday at maybe 10:15?"
See, there's a bunch of you interested. I presume if you're here this morning—even though you don't look it—I presume you're interested. Okay, you're here. Something brought you here. It's cold, it's rainy, it's wet. Something brought you here, so there's some level of interest. We're not talking about interest. I'm not looking for a bunch of interested people. At this point, if you're going to mentor somebody, you've got to find somebody who's committed. Not just interested.
Larry and I—I use that because it's my best illustration. I become a Christian. Larry says, "You got to get somebody to mentor you." And I said, "Doc, I don't know anybody but you. If you don't do it, it ain't going to happen." And he said, "Okay, let's start. We'll meet every Tuesday morning at six o'clock at the Humpty Dumpty at Central and North, at Camelback." And I said, "Okay."
So I'm driving down that first day. I'm saying six o'clock is early. I'm used to going home about—
This is not a tough time for me. So I get in there, we go through it. We're in about our third month and Larry said, "Do you want to change the time?" I said, "No, this is fine." But I said, "Can I ask you a question? Why are we meeting at six o'clock?" He said, "Because I wanted to see if you had enough commitment to get up and get down here every Tuesday morning at six o'clock."
See, there's the answer right there. If you're going to make godly decisions, you got to know His word and you've got to have people around you. You've got to be in a place where you have access to those people who can help you make decisions.
It's Time to Make a Decision
Let me see if I can tie it all together in the last 15 minutes. It's time to make a decision.
So a guy comes to me and says, "You know what? I'm looking at a job offer. I got an offer at Intel, an offer at Motorola, an offer at Sperry. What do I do?" Or, "I'm thinking about getting married. Should I marry Susie? Should I marry Betty? Should I marry Thelma? Should I marry Louise? Who should I marry in this process?"
Or here you go: "We've been thinking about moving to Bemidji." I can almost say stop, no, but to play this out, we'll play it out. "We've been thinking about moving to Bemidji and we're going to move." I'll say, "Well, how'd you decide that?" "It was really funny. We just said, 'God, if you want us to move to Bemidji,' we really do, and my old high school classmate called the other night, and that's clearly God telling us to move to Bemidji."
"God's calling me into the ministry." I get these every once in a while. "God's called me into the ministry." "Well, how'd that happen?" "Well, I'm frustrated at work." I said, "Well, that's the basis for your vocational call. You're frustrated at work." "Well, I'm frustrated at work, and so I picked up a magazine and I saw that there's this ad in there. Lo and behold, I called and they said indeed I qualified if I could raise my own support. I could go into this ministry thing." I said, "Well, how you doing?" "Well, I've raised 25% of it and we're trusting God for the rest."
How do you make decisions? In other words, here's what every one of these people are saying. I'll bet you say it too: "I want to be in God's will." That's what we're saying.
Understanding God's Will
The next 10-15 minutes are going to be either very discouraging or very encouraging for you, because we're going to blast apart some of your old stereotypes when we say "God's will." Remember, the Bible's the final authority in our life. So if we want to know what God's will is, then what we better do is say, "What's the Bible say about it?"
Here's the first thing: the Bible uses the phrase "God's will" - it's speaking of His sovereign will. In Acts chapter 2 verses 22-24, Peter's delivering this first sermon. It's a powerful sermon as he delivers it. He says that Jesus was delivered up by the predetermined plan of God. That's God's sovereign will. God's sovereign will is His mysterious, secret will. It will happen. It's declared to happen.
So when God says, "Let there be light," there was no chance there wasn't going to be light. When God said to Lazarus, "Lazarus, come out," there was no chance that Lazarus wasn't going to come out. That's God's sovereign will.
Here's the second way we use that word: God's moral will. We speak of God's moral will. We speak of His laws, His rules, His principles for us. Look up here. Right here is God's moral will, right here. This Bible's God's moral will. All of God's moral will for you is right here.
Now sometimes it's very specific. Sometimes it's very general. Try to figure out drinking - great example. Here's the instruction we have for drinking: don't get drunk with wine. Now I'll show you this - I'll show you how creative and evil we are. I had a guy who said to me, "Well, I take the Bible literally, Tom. Don't you?" I said, "I do." He said, "So I can be drunk with beer." I said, "How does that happen?" He said, "Don't be drunk with wine, and if you get in the Greek, it's wine. It's not beer. It's not booze. It's not Johnny Walker Red."
I said, "Well, the principle here, I believe, is deeper than that." So can I have a drink or not have a drink? We'll talk about that in four or five weeks. But here's what the word does: the word's very, very specific in some areas, very general in others.
The Third Way We Use "God's Will"
Here's the third way we use "God's will." We use "God's will" when we say, "It's God's will for my life that I go to Intel. It's God's will for my life that I go to Bemidji." What we mean by that is God's individual desire for me. It's not God's sovereign will. It's God's plan for me and for my life. We use that phrase or some variation of that phrase all the time.
Let me give you an example even of how we might do it scripturally. Colossians chapter 1 verse 9: Paul said this: "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding."
So people come along and say, "God has this will for my life. God prays here that I know His will. God's got this will, so I'm looking for it." Men and women, here you go: I don't believe - I believe the Bible teaches God's sovereign will. The Bible teaches God's moral will. I don't believe the Bible teaches that He has a knowable singular will for your life. I don't think it's in there.
"Well, wait a minute. What about that verse?" And there's other verses that talk about it. Look at the context. Remember, always context. Let me read it again: "For this reason, since the day we've heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Listen to the next verse, verse 10: "So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects."
He's not talking about some knowable will whether to go to Intel. He's talking about His moral will. I want you to know the will of God - what? So that you'll walk in...
The Traditional View of God's Will Creates Unnecessary Anxiety
When it's time to make a decision, I want you to understand that what so many Christians embrace as being from God is nothing more than a man-fabricated way of pursuing a decision. There's a book by Gary Friesen called "Decision-Making in the Will of God" that will answer a lot of these questions.
Let me show you how we begin to apply this. If we take what you typically hear in the traditional view, it's the idea that I've got to make a decision, so what I do is I pray about this decision. I work on this decision, and the idea there is God's got this perfect singular will for my life. Three billion women in the world and there's only one right one.
But if you look at it, it's all about decision, and let me show you how silly this is. I don't even need to ask—I can tell by looking—did you guys pray about what to wear this morning? Do you pray about whether to brush your teeth? You do thousands of things every day that you don't think about, but now it's time to make a decision.
I was watching a guy on TV the other night. Here's what he says: "Before I was coming down here, I went to the airport and I was there and I began to pray. God, do you want me to go? God, do you want me to go to this? God, do you want me to go and do you want me to do this?" I'm thinking, wait a minute—you got a ticket, you got a boarding pass, you got a confirmation that you're going to speak. I'd say you committed to go! All I could think of is, how do you like to book this guy?
The Problem with the "One Right Path" Mentality
The traditional view says here's this one thing. So all of a sudden a kid gets a scholarship to Stanford, a scholarship to Yale, and a scholarship to, let's say make it easy, U of A. So now he goes, "Okay, well really it's Stanford or Yale, but now what do I do? How do I go? Which school does God have for me? What's the right one?"
What happens is the minute I make that decision, there's no joy in Mudville. I don't rejoice and say, "Isn't God good? Look at the choices He gave me!" So many of you get so tight in making these big decisions because you're convinced God's got one right path for you and that you can know it and that if you miss it, you're in trouble. So you're scared to death when there's an option to go to Intel, scared to death about Motorola or Honeywell.
How to Actually Make Godly Decisions
Here's how you make decisions. First of all, we've got to know what God says. So your friend, your buddy calls you, and let's make it a gal. So this gal calls you and she says, "I'm thinking about getting married." You say, "Really? Who are you going to marry?" "I'm going to marry Bob."
What might be one of the first questions we'd ask about Bob? Is Bob a Christian? "No, but he's a stud."
Now I don't need to meet him. I don't need to know him. I don't need to talk to him. You've never met him—it's hypothetical. Do you need any more information to give counsel? No. There's no way that God has for this girl to marry Bob. Under no circumstances should you marry him. I don't need a bunch of information. "Don't you want to meet him?" No, I don't need to meet him. I may like him. He may be a terrific guy.
Applying Biblical Principles to Decision-Making
Here's what I tell the guys, and I use marriage as an example because it's the easiest one. Let's apply all of this stuff. What does this Scripture say? Well, the Scripture says wives submit to your husbands, so this better be a gal that can submit to you. And husbands love your wives, so it better be a gal you can love. The Scripture also says it's lifelong and it's monogamous, so you better make sure that there's some sense of compatibility here.
You go and get some information from your friends. What do you think? You've met her, you've been out with her. What do you think? What do you see here? You pray about it. Here's something we overlook: You look at your own life and say, is there any sin in my life or anything that would block me from making a decision at that moment?
God says she has to be a Christian, but you want more than that. You want a woman who loves God and is growing for Him. So here's what you do: You set down this grid, this criteria, and then you put all the candidates through it. Then you take those that are left—those four or five that are left—and then you marry the prettiest one. It's a no-brainer. That's the one God has for you!
The Freedom of Multiple Good Options
You see, that's really easy, and that takes all the wear and tear out of it. But here's what happens if you think there's three billion out there and only one's right for you, and now you're down to four or five—there's tension all over the place. God didn't design it so that every decision is filled with tension.
It's really this simple. Here's God's moral will: If you've got options—five of them—and all five are in here, then all five are okay with God as far as He's concerned. Now you figure out the one that fits for you. If you've got five options and four of them are in here and one's out here, well, we can narrow it down to four.
So here's what you do when it's time to make decisions: You take a look at the Scripture. You make sure you're coachable. You look for wisdom. You talk to your godly friends. You begin to look at the sin in your life. And then here you go—you do what you want to do. God gave you a mind and a heart and a desire.
The Joy of Biblical Decision-Making
If you're running around—I'll just say it one last time—you're running around and you think there's one place for you, one moment for you, one decision for you, there's no joy in that. And I'll tell you something far deeper than that: there's no biblical support for that.
God's sovereign will? Yes. God's moral will? Yes. This idea of an individual will for you? Absolutely not.
I had a guy call me one day. He's convinced God gave him this job—twice as much money, high visibility, and all that. A year later, he called me and said, "Obviously I misread the will of God." I said, "Why is that?" He said, "Because it didn't work out."
I said, "Wait a minute. Maybe it was God's will that you failed. Maybe God wanted you to be humble. Maybe God wanted you to go through this difficulty." See, that game is endless, men and women. You're just messing yourself around here.
The Freedom of God's Moral Will
You can't know this stuff. God told you what He wants. Here's His moral law—now live in the freedom of that. Isn't that freeing? It's really free.
I'll tell you something else: it's biblical. All of those passages where you see talking about God's will for your life—if you put them in context, virtually every time you'll see it's God talking about His moral will for your life.
We've established the Bible as final authority in our life. Now we've got to continue this process of learning. Now we make godly decisions. Now we got to start to implement that stuff. That's what we'll look at next week.
Father, help us understand this and embrace this. God, I pray for those men and women that are here today that are facing enormous decisions, and maybe for them it's just really hard to make these decisions. God, give them a sense of comfort and peace and joy that they have in knowing that You provided options. Give them wisdom to make decisions that are within Your moral law. And God, then let them have a blast living a life committed to You. God, we pray that to You in Jesus' name. Amen.
See you next week.