God's Will

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. How are y'all doing today? Good to see you. Some of you know I have a large family and many children, and one of them is very, very blonde and usually sits right there. And her name is Bonnie. And this morning, before the service, I asked her if she was gonna, after the songs, if she was gonna to go to her class, or are you going to stay and listen to daddy speak? Well, I mean, she's gone, so you know what I'm saying. She knows the answer. But it's interesting that she, her response was so great because she didn't hesitate at all to say, I'm going to my class. But it was a little sheepish, like I'm going to my class. Like she felt a little bit of just a slight smidge of guilt, but a conviction that she wasn't gonna stay. So I appreciate that about her. And if you know Bonnie, you can always get a straight answer from her. She will never sugar coat it for you.

She'll give it to you straight, which I appreciate. Today we're talking about discerning God's will. This is a big question that people have. What am I supposed to do? Lord, please just speak in what we are to do next or how am I to proceed and whatever I have to do. And you know what, this is a really good thing for me to be talking about because we, Amy and I and our kids, we are living this in real time. We are in the middle of this. And I don't mean that we are in the middle of discerning God's will. We have discerned God's will and we are actively acting on it. And if you don't know, if you're visiting today, if you're new, you just don't know us, we have been private school administrators here in Fort Worth, not here in Burleson, in Fort Worth for, oh man, 16 years and 17 years. And we love our school dearly. All our kids go to our school. And the Lord has moved upon us

to just quit those jobs and that security that brings with that. And we're gonna be moving to Oklahoma this summer to be collegiate ministers at the University of Oklahoma, which is gonna require us to raise all of our support. So we are living this, and so I have just basically recorded for you and gonna recount some of the things that Amy and I have gone through in the last few years, just sensing what the Lord is leading us to do and then being like, okay, I guess this is what we need to do in stepping out in faith on that.

But where I need to start is a heart attitude that I think many of us have, and that's where the Lord started with us. And this all started, if I could put a pinpoint on when it started, it didn't start last year. Probably started five, six years ago. And I felt like the Lord was impressing on me, And he's told us this many times in our marriage, to have an open hand with our lives. Now let me explain what that means. To have an open hand is to be kind of, it's like to be in surrender to the Lord of whatever you have in your life. That it's not that you don't make plans or you don't foresee things and you plan in that way, but keeping an open hand means that you're open to whatever the Lord has, even if it's not, doesn't fit nicely into your plan, right? And that's really, really difficult. Anybody struggle with that? I have a plan and this is what we're doing

and we're not gonna deviate from that. But the Lord really began to impress on us to have an open hand with our life because our life at that point felt really secure. We loved our jobs. There was no even an inkling of us, you know, being fired or anything like that. We're loved and appreciated and all that. But the Lord started to say, you know, what if, right? And when those what ifs started to come, it was like, are you kidding me? No, I would almost dismiss it immediately. Without even thinking about it, without even praying about it, it would just dismiss it. And that demonstrated, for me, not having an open hand. I had a very, very tight grip on my life, right? And so having an open hand was the first step in discovering what the will of the Lord was. And so, we started to have to pray about these things. Lord, help me have an open hand with my income.

Lord, let me have an open hand with my vocation. Some of you in different stages of life are having these same kind of issues, but different things. If you're a young person, Lord, help me have an open hand with who I marry. Lord, let me have an open hand with the size of my family. Let me have an open hand with my future and how I want things to go. Let me be open to your will in that.

So this open hand idea started many years ago with a trip to England. We went twice, two or three times with our previous church on a trip and pastor Drew and Pastor Daniel were with me. And while we were in England, And we thought this is a really great place to bring maybe like youth because it's relatively safe and they speak English which is always easier. The food's not super weird. Well, it's British food, but I mean it's manageable and this would be a great place to bring a team because it's kind of like getting your feet wet in foreign missions before going all in in a foreign country that has a different language and culture shock is really huge. So we started taking these trips to England and we've been doing this now for 10 years. We skipped a couple of years because of COVID. And every year I would be so moved by the people that we would meet and talk to

and I would just say, Lord, do you want us to throw away everything and move here to England? And as I was saying it, I would almost dismiss it. Oh, that's insane. No, come on. And then I was, wait, why am I dismissing it? And I would try to prime my own hand open. Why am I dismissing this immediately? And I would pray, and I would say, earnestly, Lord, if this is something that you want us to do, please let me know. I'm kind of an idiot. I'm like a slow on the uptake. Help me know that this is what we need to do. And I prayed that every year for many years, and I felt like the Lord was always saying no, or kind of like weight, but at the same time, I also felt like the Lord was saying something was coming. So I saw how this England trip and this movement in the Lord's, in the spirit in my heart was really prying, was the slow, slow process of prying my hand open, my tight grip on my life.

And oh, by the way, I have to tell you that this England trip is happening again in a month or two, and there are four people in the room who are raising support to go. So you should help Sadie and Canon and Cash and Story go to England because it's a really great trip. Just letting you know. Some of you might have got letters today, so you just pray about that. Okay, so,

so opening your hand to your life is kind of the first step. This attitude of like, what if God asked me to do something really crazy? Would I even be open to that? Or would I just immediately dismiss it? Those are the types of things we need to be thinking about and praying about. But the Lord may call you to live in Burleson until you go to heaven and do exactly what you're doing. That's possible, that happens. That's the call for lots of people. But I think most people don't even consider something else, what could be. I believe the Lord wants us to dream big, and I think a lot of our dreams are often very, very small. One of the things that Amy and I have loved to do our marriage is read biographies of Christians who have gone before us and they are fantastic. I can't get enough of them. They, for example, God's smuggler brother Andrew who smuggled Bibles behind the the Iron Curtain during

communism is a fantastic book and it's all true. The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom, Hiding Jews in Nazi in the Holland during World War II. The story of Adoniram Judson, the missionary to India, the story of Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, who lost multiple wives and children while he was on the field, but had a great impact. I read those books and I'm like, man, those guys must be really, really special that the Lord had chosen them, but as you read them and they're really honest in their biography, they weren't that special, they were just completely surrendered to the Lord. They had open hands with their life, and when the Lord said, you know, in the 1800s, you need to leave everything, leave Britain your home and go to China, Hudson Taylor, he said, okay, and I'm taking my coffin with me because I probably won't be coming back. He just had strong faith and trust.

I'm praying that you and I both have big dreams for what the Lord can do for us. To have an open hand, to begin to open your hand and be surrendered with your life, we need to understand God's plan. And that also helps us figure out what we are to do, how do we respond when we have that open hand. Now that I have an open hand, Lord, what am I to do specifically? There's a two part focus to this. There's an internal and an external focus in understanding God's plan. Now just a side note, you know, a whole sermon series can be written on these things. So this is just a 30,000 foot flyover. But I wanted to look at Romans 12:2. Now there's going to be a lot of scripture today. It's going to be up on the screen. But you can just jot down the references if you can't get to it all or flip to it in your Bible in time. So let me talk about Romans 12:2. It says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing

of your mind. then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. So it's specifically talking about God's will. If you transform your mind, you will know what God's will is. Now let me talk about real quick, there's a parallelism there, it says do not conform, but be transformed, so it's kind of like a don't do this, but do this. So conforming versus being transformed.

Do you know people in your life who, not trying to throw stones or anything, but they're only as good as the people they're with? In other words, they're this type of person that if they're around your church and your Bible study, they're all on board, but the next day if they go hang out with friends who are not Christians, they're doing whatever they're doing, right? They rise or fall to the level of their surroundings. That's what conforming means, okay? That means you are just trying to fit in, but you really don't believe in your heart in those things. Okay? And we do this all the time. It's not bad necessarily to try to blend, you know? But for a long-term plan, the Lord is calling us to be transformed. Being transformed doesn't mean you just simply conform. Being transformed means that you change in your heart to where you believe that is true and that is the right thing to do

even if nobody's watching and you're on a desert island alone, you'll still believe that thing. It also can be called as convictions, right? So, you know, maybe you have an issue, there's an issue in your life, maybe, you know, I don't know, you might have a little bit of a foul mouth. I don't know, it happens sometimes, but you know around your Christian friends that you shouldn't do that because they come, maybe they think that's bad or whatever, but when you're not around them, you just go ahead and let it flow. There's not a true transformation about that issue in your heart. And so, when God transforms you, you believe that thing at your core being, and you're gonna believe that thing no matter who else is around. So the Lord is calling us to be transformed. And guys, that takes time. It takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. the Lord has been transforming me

ever since I decided to follow Him, and it's a slow process. But I can be encouraged every once in a while because even though I still struggle and I still sin and I still have to repent and ask forgiveness all the time, I can look back and see the progress that I made and the Lord only expects progress from us, not perfection. So be encouraged just to take that first step wherever you need to be, take that first step and don't let it overwhelm you. So that is the internal focus.

So renewing your mind, it has to do with being a learner because the word disciple means learner. So being a follower of Christ or being a disciple of Christ, it means, actually means learner. I don't want to be that type of person that when I get lots of gray hairs, I'm done learning. In other words, if I'm a well-established person in life and a career and a young teenager comes up to me and really challenges me on something and corrects me, man, I really pray that I can receive that and be a learner and learn from that young person. This was modeled to me many years ago. I was sitting in a worship service kind of like this. And it was when we were living at OU at the first time. And a young lady was giving her testimony on stage. She had just decided to follow Christ that week. Somebody had shared the gospel with her and she decided to follow Christ and they said,

you know, would you like to give a testimony in front of like 300 people on Thursday? And she accepted weirdly, I would have said, no way, man. But she was like, yes, I'll share my testimony. And here's this person who just became a Christian days before sharing her testimony. And I just happened to glance to the right and my friend Max was sitting there and Max is, you know, he had been the director at OU since 1967. He was an older gentleman, many gray hairs of wisdom. He's probably forgotten more about God than I've ever learned, that kind of guy, you know, you really look up to. And when I glanced over at Max, he is diligently taking notes of what this freshman is saying. And I thought, whoa, so I asked somebody else about it. I was like, I saw Max taking notes. And I just never seen that before, and the person responded, yeah, he doesn't wanna miss anything the Lord has from him,

and he believes that God can speak to him through anybody, even through a freshman that just accepted Christ two days ago. He believes that the Lord can speak to him. and he don't wanna miss a thing, and I just, I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that. I don't wanna miss a thing the Lord has to say to me. I don't wanna limit my heart and my life to this kind of like, you know, this narrow focus of who's gonna speak to me. Like, and well, if Drew, my pastor, says it to me, then I'll listen, but everybody else know. You know, that's insane. The Lord and the Holy Spirit can use anybody in this room, maybe even Bonnie Clare, to speak to our hearts and really challenge us. but we have to be open and we have to listen to that. So part of the renewing of your mind means to be a learner and not just a learner, but a lifelong learner and never feel like you have it all together.

Paul wrote from prison in Philippians 3:10 and I'm gonna read the amplified version because it just has so much more to it, you know what I mean? The amplified version just really great sometimes. So this is Paul writing a letter to the Philippians but he's writing from prison And I don't mean like, you know, a federal holiday in prison like they have now. I'm talking about Roman prison, hole dug in the ground, these kinds of things, really, really bad conditions. And Paul says, and this, so that I may know him, experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with him, understanding the remarkable wonders of his person more completely, and in that same way, experience the power of His resurrection, which overflows and is active in believers, and that I may share the fellowship of His sufferings by being continually conformed inwardly, His likeness even to His death, dying as He did.

From a jail cell, Paul said, my purpose is to know Christ. And this is the Apostle Paul. Everybody's coming to Paul for advice. He's writing letters to the churches, And he's saying, my purpose is to know him. So we need to be transformed, we need to be a learner. That is the internal focus. We need to grow and we need to learn more about the Lord and know what his mind is.

That's the internal focus. Then we have an external focus, and that is helping others. So you all know the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 through 20. And then Jesus said to them, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus is saying, go and make disciples, and we've been talking about that a lot at this church, But I wanted to encourage you that go doesn't necessarily mean get up from where you are and travel somewhere, okay? Go can also be translated as as you are going, make disciples. So as you are going, make disciples. As you are doing what you normally do, make disciples.

Well, that's really well and good, but it takes some thinking and it takes some praying to figure out, well, how am I supposed to make disciples, okay? Okay, how am I to make disciples as a construction worker? How am I supposed to make disciples as a teacher? How am I supposed to make disciples as whatever God has called you to do? Well, that's the challenge. But we all have that upon us. I hope if you've been here long enough, you've heard that the Great Commission is not simply on the church or the pastor, it is on all believers. If you follow Lord Jesus, the Great Commission is for you too to make disciples. Second Timothy 2-2 says, the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. This is Paul speaking to Timothy. And what you have here is an extra dimension of making disciples.

Paul is saying to Timothy, don't just make disciples, but make disciples who can also make more disciples. He's talking about exponential growth. You have several generations mentioned in this verse. It says, things with you, the things that you have heard from me, me would be Paul. He's talking to Timothy, so there's two. And the presence of many witnesses. And trust these two faithful men. There's three generations who can teach others also. There's four generations. So he's talking to Timothy, faithful men and others. He's saying we need to make disciples, but we don't need just to need to do that. We need to cast this vision for people that we all need to be a part of this. It's not just for the apostles, it's for everyone. We need to make disciples. Now, there must be a balance between this internal and this external focus. Too much focus on one or the other can be problematic.

So for just an example, sometimes people tend to be in one ditch or the other. So too much of an internal focus could be like the self-help craze, which is really, really popular in our world today. Go into any bookstore, Christian bookstore, Unfortunately, the how can you, you know, 10 ways to success section is just huge because that's what sells. People are looking for ways to improve themselves. And not that that's a bad thing, look, it's not bad. It's just there needs to be some balance in that.

And the world tends to have an unhealthy preoccupation with self. And the Bible calls us to die to self. So that would be one ditch is being, you know, so preoccupied with yourself that you don't look out and help other people. And then the other ditch, too much of an external focus, sometimes happens to people in ministry where they just burn out, okay? They neglect their own spiritual needs. They neglect their own need to be before the Lord, to pray, to commune with God, to share in their sufferings with fellow believers, and they burn out. I've heard it tons of times, I'm sure Drew could tell all kinds of stories of friends and ministry who have either just completely burned out and left the ministry, or even worse, have fallen into some grievous sin because they're not keeping kind of guard on that by feeding themselves. So we definitely have to have this kind of balance

between the internal of growing and living, growing more in the Lord and feeding ourself, but also going out and helping others. And look, you don't have to wait until you're perfect and you're a Bible scholar to help other people, you know. I've always been told that if you heard the gospel on Sunday you should be able to tell somebody about it on Monday. I mean, like, you don't need to be. And you'll just, you can't wait. You'll end up, it'll be the end of your life and you weren't perfect and you didn't help anybody. You've gotta start wherever you are and know that the Spirit is gonna be faithful to fill in the gaps where you might be lacking. So, you know, I'm coming to you to talk about discerning God's will, but might it be better asked this way? Might we rephrase the question to say, instead of discerning God's will, what is my part or how can I be involved in God's plan?

Or how am I making disciples as a fill in the blank? Or is there something else out there that I need to do that's a better use of my time with the time that I have left? You know, look, some of you in the room are going to chuckle at me because I'm not extremely old but I'm not young either. And so there's this, we've kind of run into this time in our life, you know, some people call it maybe a midlife crisis. I did not go out and buy a Corvette, okay, I didn't. But I started to really think about, wow, I don't have as much time left in my life as I do. Am I using it the most efficiently and the best I can for the Lord Jesus Christ? And that was part of our testimony as far as like, you know, I don't think we are and we need to pray about something else. So Amy and I started praying about other things. That's another instance of when the Lord was just really trying to probably open our

hands. This is when your open hand comes into play again. Can you even consider something else if you don't have that attitude of an open hand? It's very, very difficult, you wanna dismiss it. So, let's get down to brass tacks here. How can we really discern practically, what can we do practically to help us understand what our part is going to be in God's plan, in God's vision? Well, I'm gonna give you three things today, And I call these the checks and balances of figuring out how to participate in God's vision, kind of like in the US, I used to be a government teacher so I think about this, but the checks and the balances of the United States are the executive, the legislative, and the judicial, and those three branches keep each other in check and balance each other out, so one branch can't have too much power in the other. So the idea is that hopefully through these three entities,

good decisions will be made and nobody will go rogue, right? Well, the checks and the balances, the three things are is the word, prayer, and godly counsel. So we're gonna talk about the word. I can't stress it enough. You need to read your Bible, okay? You need to read it, and not just like once, like you read a good novel. You need to read it, and read it again, and read it again, and read it again. There are things that the Lord will bring to you in verses of scriptures that you may not have seen and you may have read 10 or 15 times, but that 16th time the Lord really speaks to you through that. This is Paul talking to Timothy again about the word of God in 2 Timothy 3.

But as for you, continue on what you have learned and become convinced of because you know those from who you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful useful teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. To know God's heart and to know God's mind, you need to know God's word, okay?

This is one of the biggest things in keeping you from making some decision that might be outside of God's will, because he's pretty specific and pretty clear about things that he wants us as believers to do. Another great chapter, if you want to meditate on Psalm 119. Now Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible and it is the longest, it's the longest chapter in the Bible and it is all about God's word. And so I'm just gonna read you a little bit of Psalm 119 real quick. Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, whose walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his statutes and keep him with all their heart. They do know wrong but follow his ways. You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees. Then I would not be put to shame. Then I would consider all your commands.

I will praise you with an upright heart. As I learn your righteous laws, I will obey your decrees. Do not utterly forsake me. How can a young person stay on the path of purity by living according to your word? I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I've hidden my word in your heart, hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And incidentally, that last verse, verse 11, was the first verse I memorized after a friend of mine really challenged me to hide God's word in my heart. Now, I'd had John 3:16 memorized because I'd been to, you know, study school's kid. But the first verse that I memorized on my own without promise of a reward like candy or something was Psalm 11911. First Peter 2, 2 says, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to your salvation. We need to know what God says,

to know what he wants us to do. It's essential. And not only that, not only knowing and reading the word can help us understand God's mind and God's heart for the world, but what's really amazing is he can use his word and the Holy Spirit can use his word to actually speak directly to our hearts. Now, I don't mean taking verses necessarily out of context. Context is very, very important. But the Lord can and does and has used his word to really specifically speak to us, especially in our transition to Oklahoma. The Lord has been really clear, and we asked him, Lord, please, Lord, we're really dumb. Please speak to us through your scriptures. And so he's done that, and I'm gonna have Amy share some of the ways that he has spoke to us because Amy has gotten several words from the Lord through her times in the Word.

Hi guys. Ooh, I'm very loud. This is kind of nerve-wracking. It feels okay, I'm gonna read a little bit. I wrote out this right after it happened. So Dan and I were feeling that stirring something was gonna change. I'd felt really strongly that if there was a change that was gonna come, it would be through like Dan's ministry, I mean we had ministry together but it wouldn't be through a change in my job. I didn't feel like I was gonna go be an administrator at another school or something. So we were really feeling like a big change was coming and that we were gonna have to leave our school. That was one clear message that we got. But we had this big lingering question of do we stay in Fort Worth? Do we stay in our house in Crowley? We were here with you guys. This is like the hardest thing I think is walking away from our church body here and so we were kinda just,

okay Lord, we'll change our job But do we really have to move? And so that was kind of weighing on us for weeks and weeks. It was a really, really hard kind of time. And so the question was lingering, do we stay or do we go? And then one night, I was awoken at like 4 in the morning because my feet were itching. And so I scratched my feet and I tried to go back to bed. And then I woke up a few minutes later and they're itching worse. And I kept scratching them and kept waking up. And I was like, what is going on? And I fluffed my pillow and get really frustrated. So it happened three times. And then finally, I got it. I was reminded of 1 Samuel 3 when the Lord was calling Samuel and he thought it was Eli's voice. And he'd go and say, hey, do you call me? And he's like, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. Do you guys know this story? OK, and then so Eli realized that the Lord

was calling the boy. And so it says in 1 Samuel 3, 8, and 9, Eli told Samuel, go and lie down. And if he calls you again, say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went away and laid down in this place. So I didn't lie down, but I got up and I said, the Lord wants me to go to the word. I'm listening, Lord. And so he just prepped my heart when I was all alone in the house, which is a very rare thing, because there are lots of people that live at my house and they need me all the time. So in the middle of the night when everything is quiet. And I went to the Bible. I've heard a lot about discerning the Lord's voice through the scriptures. And I think it's a really careful thing that you have to do.

I think a lot of people, well, we believe firmly that we shouldn't play Bible Roulette. Okay, so we don't just like open the word and flip and put your finger down and claim a verse from God like that is not right. Okay, that's bad, bad things. Okay, so we, we don't do that, but we do as a way to get the word in our life all the time to read it and be able to read it again and not just go back to our favorite comforting passages all the time. We adopted like 25 years ago a Bible reading calendar that would give you like little sections of the Bible to read every day. And if you read all three sections, you read through the Bible in a year, you know, take about 20 minutes a day. So we've been doing this forever, and even if we're inconsistent and I have time and I'm going to go to the word today, I always go back to my Bible reading calendar. I don't play Bible Reel it on a daily basis either.

So I knew what I was going to read. I was going to open up and read the passage for the day. So when I got to the passage, it was Numbers 23. So immediately I was like, ooh, one of my favorite verses is in Numbers 23, which says, 2319, which says, God is not a man that he should lie, nor the Son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and then not fulfill? So the immediate thing in my head is the Holy Spirit saying, remember what you already have in your heart, which is that I will speak and I will act and I will fulfill my promises. And so I'm like, okay, he's about to say something to us. It's really good. So, but that wasn't the reading. The reading actually started later, like a few verses after that, but the thought was in my head. So I started reading and I started praying. As I was going down through the reading,

it was just a couple of verses in, I'm feeling like a presence of the Holy Spirit. Like you just feel He's near. You guys feel the heaviness of the Lord when He's about to say something important. If you've not felt that, it's very cool. I'm not all about feelings, but He gives it to me a couple of times, and that's good. I'm not like a big sign seeker. But the verse said, right when I felt it, I like took a breath before I read this verse, and says, and Balak said to Balaam, come now, I will take you to another place. Now, I'm not about pulling it out of context. I know what it means in context, but there was the answer to what I've been asking, and it was the exact answer, come now. Not in three years, come now, we're gonna go somewhere new. And so I kept reading and I journaled about it for the next hour and I prayed and it was just, it was a word for me and the Holy Spirit met me

in that moment and God met me in the living and active word. Right, and that's how he does it. And so it's very, very cool. I woke up the next morning and I couldn't wait. Dan like woke up and I'm like staring at him. He's like, what is going on? And I was like, God said something and let's read this together. And he was so encouraged and I was encouraged And it was a heartbreaking thing. I mean, it's not like, yay, we're going to go to a new place and sell our dream home and move away from all these people we love. But God's like, I'm going with you. Like, it's going to be great. And that's for a dance thing. We're dumb. The lesson I've also learned is that I am a dumb sheep. And I've heard all these sermons about sheep, and they're so dumb they can't even find their own water. And they'll just graze in the same dead patch of dirt. And they have no food. And they've got nothing.

And God has to. He's gentle, and he leads you to a place where you could be fed. And so I'm like, Laura, I'm a dumb sheep. Please tell me again. which I know I don't deserve. He should speak once and we should obey, right? I mean, that's what I expect of my kids. But he doesn't, he's gracious and loving and he tells us over and over again. So I was really thankful about that and it was just one way that God showed up. So not saying God's telling you all to come now and go to a new place, but that's what he was saying to me. Thank you, Amy.

Yeah, I thought it would be better if she just told her story than me trying to recount it. The Lord speaks through his word. And how can we hear from Him if we're not in the Word? We need to be in the Word and know the mind of God and hear from Him and hear His voice. So reading the Word is the first thing. The second thing is to pray. We need to be praying. Philippians 4, 6, and 7, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, I want just to encourage you to be praying without ceasing. The word also says to pray without ceasing. And that doesn't mean that you're constantly going through your day, eyes closed and head down and not talking to anybody and whispering to yourself.

That's not what that means. But that you're having an ongoing conversation with the Lord and your brain gets stretched. You may be stretched to do work or you're a student and it's stretched to go to math class, well then when that's over, it kind of relaxes. And when your brain relaxes, where does it return to? Does it return to that conversation with the Lord? Is it returned to something else? It doesn't always have to return to that conversation with the Lord, but praying without ceasing means that you have this kind of ongoing conversation with the Lord about just everything that's going on. And that way, your prayer life just doesn't become like a laundry list of requests. Help me with this, this, this, and this, this, thank you. It becomes more of adoration, Lord, oh wow, look at that amazing sunrise that I'm seeing on the way to work. I like to thank God for good parking places.

Like when you just get that really good parking spot, you're like, thank you, Lord, that is an amazing parking spot. Or thank you, Lord, I have to park clear out in the back because I really do need to get my steps in today. So I wanna encourage you to pray more actively. You don't always feel like you need to be kneel, knelt down, but besides, you're better, something like that, to have this active conversation with the Lord throughout the day and to be praying. And also, in your prayer time, give time to listen. I think the Lord wants to speak to us. And so, a lot of times, reading your Bible and praying at the same time is a really nice combination because you're praying, you're thanking the Lord, you're adoring Him for who He is, You're confessing sin, and you're reading the scriptures, and so as you're praying, like Amy said, God can really answer your prayers right then and there

through the things you're reading, and that is amazing when the God of heaven and earth speaks directly to you through his word. The last thing of the trifecta of good decision-making and finding God's will is to get good and godly and wise counsel. I'll just read you a few verses from Proverbs. Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed. The way of the foolish is right in his own eyes, but the person who listens to advice is wise. Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but an abundance of counselors there is victory.

Wise counsel is crucial in helping us make decisions because people who are wise can also see our blind spots, places that we can't see, maybe places that we're weak in. A great example is I was really horrible when it came to choosing people to date for many years. And I was so bad at it that I decided that I wasn't gonna even date anybody again unless my mentors and my guys who I trusted approved of it. And so when I thought that I might like to date Miss Amy Van Dyke, I went and talked to several guys and I was, I promise you, if they would have said that that wasn't a good idea, we wouldn't be here today. But they said, yeah, I think that's a great idea and that helped me because I had such a blind spot when it came to dating. I was so terrible at it that I needed somebody else to assure me that this was a good idea. We need good biblical, godly counsel.

However, some of you might be thinking, who? Who do I get godly counsel from? There's the obvious choice, your pastors. That doesn't only have to be that. But if you're having trouble figuring out who you might get counsel from, this might reveal another blind spot in your life which is a true lack of biblical community. Biblical community is a natural combination of mature believers and less mature believers living life together and sharing each other's burdens. And when you do that, you really get to know people and you really become known, okay? I think in our society today, our culture, we like to keep everybody at arm's length and there's probably really good reasons for that. Maybe we were hurt and betrayed by people in our past And we don't wanna really let people past here, past the front gate, but being known and through biblical community can be really great

in helping you figure out what you need to do next. This means people knowing you beyond a surface level, your warts and all, how are they gonna give you wise counsel if they don't know your whole story? It is so refreshing when I'm trying to figure something out to talk to Pastor Drew or Pastor Dan now, even. Drew and Dan have been in my life for lots of years now. They know me really well. I can't fool them. They know exactly who I am. And that's the people I wanna ask when I need to make a decision because they know who I am. They know my weaknesses and my strengths. They know my tendencies. And they can caution me or give me the green light or the yellow light, or this is a really stupid idea, because they know me that well, and I don't have to give them like 10 years of backstory. And even when I do, that backstory might be skewed because I'm a human being

and I wanna put myself in the best light. Or if I really wanna do this thing, I'm gonna make it sound amazing to Drew. So he'll put his stamp of approval on it and then I'll say, yay, I got godly counsel and they said I should do it. When I really just was biased. But since Drew and Dan and several others, you know, like guys in my life group and things like that, and mentors from the past, know me really, really, really well, they are gonna shoot me straight. So I just wanna encourage you guys to be known. That's really hard. I'm an introvert by nature. I'd rather be by myself most days if I had my choice. But I am so grateful for the Lord that I am known in a deep and intimate way by more people than just my wife. It is so beneficial. So be known. Jump into that home group. Jump into that life group. And start that process of being known and then knowing others.

You need to know others so they can ask you stuff sometime and ask what you think of things. So where are you right now? Is your hand tightly gripped around your life? Does this kind of make you uncomfortable? Look, I'm not saying we all need to jump up and go into foreign missions. I think maybe the fear is that as soon as you open your hand, God's gonna tap you on the shoulder and say, I've got a mud hut for Africa and you, let's go. And you're like, what? No, that's not gonna happen probably, but are you open to if it does? So here's a couple just action steps for you. And we're gonna talk about the eternal and external real quick and then we'll be done. Internally, how do I get the word into my heart? will start a Bible reading plan. If you don't have one, I can give you one. I didn't bring any today, but I can get you one. I can get you on a plan to read the Bible in a year.

It only takes, if you really slow down, it takes 15 minutes. If you're a quick reader, it might take you five or seven. And commit to having that time where you pray and read your Bible five out of seven days a week. 15 minutes, 10 minutes a day, it's nothing. That's nothing. But it's over time, you're talking about the cumulative effect. If you read for five minutes a day for the next year, you're gonna know a lot more about the Bible than you did right now. And you've gotta just put that little bit of time in, okay? Externally, how can you begin to open your hand externally? Well, you can pray for us as we go and missionaries like us. You can go on short-term trips. The short-term England trip that I talked about, we've been taking teenagers for years and we've had three, I believe, We've had three kids go back to England for longer terms because of that short-term trip

because God gave them a real vision for missions. One is there right now, as a matter of fact. You can go on short-term trips to expand your understanding of God's heart for the nations. You can also help support missionaries. I was trying to find a statistic, but the money that is out there to pay missionaries through churches and sending organizations is very, very small. The vast majority of people who are in full-time ministry are raising their own support, and that's what we're gonna have to do. In fact, we are leaving here and driving to Oklahoma City this afternoon, and in the next two days, we're gonna have five or six meetings with people about asking them to come on our support team, and that's really hard. Please pray for us. It's a difficult thing for me to do, but I believe that it's what the Lord wants us to do we're stepping out in faith in that.

So internally reading your Bible, having a quiet time praying, and externally try to expand your vision for what the Lord has, dream big, read biographies, read God's smuggler, you can borrow my copy. It's a really, really great book. It's better than any fiction out there. Honestly, the truth is better than fiction most times. And these are all the things that Amy and I have incorporated into our lives, and it has stretched our faith, and it's helped us slowly but surely to open our hands to what the Lord has for us. And my question for you today, I'm gonna leave you with this. Will you begin to open up your hand today? Will you begin at the very, very least as a small step to just loosen your grip on your plan for your life? Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much, Lord, for what you're doing in Amy and I's life, God. I pray that we have a great afternoon as we travel to Oklahoma City, Lord, that you'll be with us,

You'll bind the enemy in making us fearful or feeling inadequate that we don't deserve this ministry that you've given us. I pray in the name of Jesus, Lord, that you would help people to loosen their grip, Father, and to be open to what you have for them. Lord, we love you and we pray, God, that you would just help us to hear from you and to be part of your global plan. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Dan, thank you for sharing from your heart. Amy, thank you for sharing from your heart. It's just so good to hear about people that are just kind of working out in real time. What is it to discern God's will that convicted me? We have a time for response, and in the back we have some couches and some chairs.

And my encouragement to you, man, if there's a way that you need to just take a step, whatever that is, if you're just saying, I don't even know, but I feel like the Lord is It's called me to do something. Man, that's the beginning of a journey of discernment. Okay? That's the beginning of you saying, wait, I'm not, maybe I'm not doing what I need to do and maybe I'm going in a direction I don't need to go, but I need to do something different. Well, that's a good place to begin praying. That's a good place to begin speaking to your pastor or speaking to people that you about saying, what do I need to do next? And maybe you don't even go back there and talk to me. Maybe you talk to the person next to you. Maybe you talk to somebody who brought you. Maybe you talk to your spouse. Maybe you talk to your kids. You talk to somebody about what's gonna happen next.

So my encouragement as we sing, and even after the service, I'll still be back there. Whatever you need to do, just act on that.