Sermon No.2 – Looking for Secret Information?

1. Deut 29:29—God’s Secret Will and His Revealed Will

               God only makes known what He knows we need to know in order to live in a way that is pleasing to Him. Other things are kept a secret.

  2. “The Centre of God’s Will”

We all should want to be in harmony with God so we please Him and experience His blessing. How to do this has been taught in different ways.

  A.  The Bull’s Eye Model

  This teaches that there is only one specific plan for your life and that you must know what it is in order to make the right choices. If you don’t make the one and only right choice then you are outside God’s will for you.

  —based on the idea of receiving or discerning secret information

In order to follow this model you have to discern things that God deliberately chooses not to reveal.

—creates unnecessary anxiety and guilt

If you don’t guess right you are said to be outside of the centre of God’s will and therefore outside His best for you.

—not workable for everyday life

While those who teach this model advocate certain methods to find God’s secret will, they do not usually advocate using such procedures for simple, everyday decisions.  This would become labourious and ultimately, ridiculous.

  B) The Way of Wisdom Model

This model teaches that there is an area of freedom and flexibility for decision making when matters fall within God’s revealed moral law and ethical principles. Anywhere within this area is being in the “centre of God’s will” and leads to His blessings (see Joshua 1:7-8).

3.  Conclusion

A. Some things are a secret.

Because details of our personal lives are not in the Bible, such matters are part of the secret things of God.

B. God has given us what He thinks we need to know.

               See Deut 29:29 and Joshua 1:1-8 once more.                         

C.  The Way of Wisdom model works for the important and ordinary decisions of life

It is a single model that works for all situations.

D.  The Way of Wisdom model promotes maturity .

We have the responsibility to know God’s revealed will and to make decisions for ourselves based on what we are given by God.

E.  The Way of Wisdom model is taught in Scripture.

See II Tim 3:16-17 and Ps 119:97-144.