Divine Direction For What’s Next
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · June 2, 2024 · Here's Your Sign series
Jeremy MacDonald opens Romans 12:1-5, showing that God's will is good, pleasing and perfect, and that He moves first in mercy. Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, we can give our whole lives to Him and trust His direction for what's next.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Here's Your Sign series
Topics: Faith, Purpose, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] What is it about growing up that's just so emotional? You know, like, I hear a song like that and it makes me think about my 4-year-old and my 6-year-old and my 8-year-old. You know, I hear a song like that and it reminds me, and maybe it reminds you of that, that first night in my college dorm room. Like, I remember leaving from the Moncton airport and it was an early morning and I remember the tears of everybody as I jumped on an airplane with a friend and went three flights and landed in Regina, Saskatchewan, for the first time and drove into the prairies to this remote location for Bible college. And that first night, you know, the tears that welled up in me because in that moment it wasn't bad, but it was emotional and there was just so much there wrapped up and feeling all of these different emotions as life just kind of grips you in that moment.
[1:02] And those times for you, you know, it might be in those kind of big decision moments. It might be that time that, you know, you face that first job or the next job or the next change when you realize the phase of life that you're in is about to be different. You know, the emotion that comes with watching your kids or your grandkids. And there's so much that we wrestle with and that we deal with as life goes on and causes all of these emotions, and in particular these kinds of emotions. This idea of, like, uncertainty, like the world is a scary place when you're holding the hand of a 4-year-old. You know, this world is an uncertain place when you're sending off somebody.
[1:48] But there's also risk, right? Like, there's risk in stepping into that new thing. There's risk and wondering, am I doing the right thing? Or am I accepting the right position? And even sometimes fear, even though it could be the right next thing or that next relationship, and there's just fear. Am I doing what I'm supposed to do? And in the midst of it all, it can often really and truly feel lonely, that we're left wondering, could there be, could there just be, please, like, a sign from somewhere that I'm on the right track, that I'm raising my kids the right way, that we're doing the appropriate things? That if there's a God out there, would You just give me a sign? Here's your sign. You will learn to know God's will for you and for you, for you and for me.
[2:47] Because thousands of years ago, the ancients and those growing up in the first century wanted the same thing that we do, which is some kind of divine direction, knowing that we're on the right path in our life, because things just feel so often like sand slipping through our fingers. And yet if we could just grab a hold of what's right or true or good, surely we could make something of this life. And Paul, writing to the church in Rome, says, this Christian God that I look to has a will for you and it has a will for me. And not only is there a will for you and there's a will for me, but He actually qualifies it. Paul, writing to the church in Rome, he says, God's will for you is actually specific.
[3:35] It's this: it's good and it's pleasing and it's perfect. Because even in those days, people knew that there could be some type of force giving direction, but they weren't always sure that it had their best interest at heart. But they knew that they had to look to some kind of force or some kind of external thing. And in those days it was really clear, you could actually walk the streets as Paul's writing this letter to the church in Rome, like, they would know and recognize, "Oh, there's the gods that will give you direction for your life, and if you want different direction, you can go to the different gods." And so back in those days, like, it was actually pretty clear, like, you knew where Jupiter was. "Oh, that's the temple over there.
[4:20] It's on the corner of, like, First and Main Street. If you go there, you know, you can bring something and, like, Jupiter will give you something. We're not sure exactly what the will is of Jupiter's, but we're hopeful. You know, Juno is over here." You know, for the Greeks, the idea that Zeus or Athena and there's so many of the gods had a will for their life, and people wondered what it would be because it's so difficult and emotional to walk through with the uncertainty, the loneliness and the risk of just life. And so how do you discover this divine direction? Well, before we go there, the truth is that for any one of us in today's day and age, when we look at Jupiter and Juno and Zeus, we kind of laugh a little bit on the inside because how primitive were those people, thinking that the Zeus of the age would have any kind of a direction for them.
[5:16] But what's happened in our culture and in our day-to-day is that we've actually taken those gods and instead put in new ones that without even realizing it sometimes come into this competition with the God and the will of God that we wanna share, that when we open the Christian Scriptures and when we talk about it here, that's in competition with for your heart. Because back in those days, Zeus and Apollo were in competition for your heart. But in our day, our hearts have been shaped and formed by a philosophy, by a thought pattern, by a worldview that is sometimes you don't even fully realize. And I just wanna show you, just so you realize as we walk into this, what you're contending with and what you're wrestling with on the inside of your own heart and your own journey and your own life.
[6:03] We go to the 18th century philosopher and the Enlightenment in the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau says, "Man is by nature good and that only our institutions have made him bad." This is not true, but this has shaped so much of what our world and what you and what I have been infused with in terms of an idea and a philosophy that our goodness is actually just deep inside of us and that all the external forces and all the words from the gods or the Scriptures are from other places or institutions are just kind of crowding in and will corrupt you. And so what's happened is that this idea kind of worked its way through the academy. In fact, a Canadian philosopher in the last century, he said this, trying to explain this particular thing.
[6:50] Charles Taylor says, "Our moral salvation," describing this, this is not advocating for it, but describing it, "that our moral salvation comes from recovering authentic moral contact with ourselves." This is what our world says and what you've been led to believe before we can contend with the will of some kind of God in the universe. We have to contend with where we've put our trust and our faith and what God we look to for the will for our own lives. And so philosophers are one thing, But things aren't really true in a culture until they work their way into your stories and your fairytales and your songs.
[7:36] So this is what's happened, right? How about this one? "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" Mulan, right? Or how about this one? This one's a, this one's a hard, difficult cut. "No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free." From Elsa. And listen, it's the cutest when my 4-year-old daughter sings that song, but it's also a lie from the pit of hell. And I'm just saying, it's a bit of a struggle for me because this is the age, and in so many ways, this is almost not even until you point our fingers on it, it's not even that odd. It feels almost like this is true, like just deeper inside of each and every one of us comes the goodness and the truth that our lives are gonna be marked by the will of whatever I can find within.
[8:39] And it's so fascinating because it's not even just a thought, but it's actually religious in nature. Like, you think about the idea of, like, the ancients sacrificing to Zeus, and again, so primitive. Why would you ever do that? Until you sit in a corporate boardroom and have a conversation with your boss and contend for a raise or a step up in the company and you try to articulate why you deserve that. And you say things like, "Because I've sacrificed so much for this company," you sacrificed, until you're in a conversation with your significant other, wrestling through trying to help us understand the together. Could we go forward in this? And you're trying to articulate it, and you're like, "But I've sacrificed so much for you."
[9:29] Or you're late at night on your own and you're wrestling through the fact that life isn't what you wanted, and you think, maybe it's because I've sacrificed so many things for other people, maybe I need to start sacrificing and living for myself. And you use and think the language of sacrifice, it's baked in, and it's baked into your story and it's baked into my story. But we go back to this idea that Paul would say to the church in Rome and say to the church in Moncton and say to you and say to me, you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect, and you can actually receive divine direction for what's next. And it's gonna be good.
[10:15] And it can be specific. Like, it really can be the idea that when you're wrestling through, like, what is the next job or what is the next move or what is the next relationship, you can bring that and receive and have a sense of God's will specifically for your life, and that actually could be a good thing and that could actually be worth chasing and sorting out. And no matter what your experience of faith or what your experience of religion is, that this God actually has your best interest at heart. Because for you, one of the challenges is even when you rest on the culture of our age and the philosophy, you know, you don't always have your best interests at heart. You don't always have your own best interests at heart. Let's not just pretend that if you were in charge of your life from start to finish, that it would go the best it could go.
[11:05] You just need to talk to a few people with gray hair to know that, honestly, heaven help me if I'm in charge of my life and making all the decisions because I don't always have my best interest at heart, and neither do you. Your greatest regrets, some of the heartache of your life, are when you look back and realize that you even didn't have your best interest at heart. But this God that Paul's talking about, He does. And He has a will for you and a direction for you that's good and pleasing and perfect. And so what is it? Paul is the question. What is it? Well, when we open and we get to this point in the Scriptures, we have to realize the whole verse actually says, "Then you will know." There's a few steps beforehand that we'll get to.
[11:54] But first, we have to go back. And so what we're gonna do for these next four weeks is we're gonna walk slowly through five verses in Romans chapter 12, to understand this will of God, this divine direction, and what it means for you and what it means for me in order to do that. Walking slowly through these verses will shape and change how we look at ourselves, how we understand God, and how we understand what our next steps might be. And so let me read you these five verses that we'll spend four weeks wrestling through, and then we'll spend a little bit of time just on the first verse together here today. So Romans 12:1 says this: "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all that He has done for you.
[12:49] And we'll come back to that one in a second, but let's keep going. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God." This is the beautiful part. "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think. Then those two things come first, and then you'll learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." But Paul goes on because there's more to this concept and this idea, because of the privilege and the authority that God has given me. "I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are.
[13:38] Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith that God has given us. What do we measure ourselves by? By the faith of God that He's given to us. It's not by our own measure, it's not by our own ideas, but it's by what God is giving to us. And just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body, which is the church. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other." This is the package of understanding and knowing and wrestling and contending with God's will. But let's go back to that first verse. "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all that He has done for you."
[14:27] It is using this kind of sacrificial language, giving your bodies, the idea being that in those days they understood what sacrifice was. And for the Jews, of which we saw the birth of the Christian faith, from the Jewish faith, there is this clear sense. You go to the temple, you bring your sacrifice. There's a sacrifice to be made in order to experience God's will for your life. But that was not just in the Jewish faith, that was in the entirety of antiquity. That was the whole concept of trying to appease the gods as you bring sacrifice. But the unique proposition of the Jewish God and the unique proposition of the Christian God is that our God is the God who actually moves first.
[15:14] We don't have to be the kinds of people wondering what God really wants. He's made it really clear and He's actually done all the work. And so because of what God has done for us, That's why we bring our bodies to Him. This is a faith that is physical in nature. When we talk about faith from this platform, when we talk about this Christian God, it's not simply an intellectual idea, but it's something that requires something of all of us. This is the nature of giving your whole bodies to this God. It's not just a Sunday morning kind of thing. You know, sometimes you grow up and you think, at least, you know, if you've grown up in church world, like, "Oh, I do the church thing on a Sunday and then I do my thing the rest of the week." And the Scriptures are really clear.
[15:59] That's not how this thing works. God wants all of you, not a fractured piece of you. God's will for you is for all parts of your life, not just your religious ideas, your religiosity, your faith in Him. It can be measured by the way that you live your faith out day in and day out. But we do move in that way because of what God has done for us. And the interesting thing for Paul is that when he speaks to the Jewish Christians and then he speaks to the Gentile Christians, the Gentiles being us, most of us aren't Jewish. Some of you might be, but for the Jewish Christians, they had the story of God looking after and caring for their people. And in this particular verse, when it says, "Because of all that He has done for you," the translation, the coming out of the Greek, is this idea of God's mercies, that God's been merciful to us, to you.
[16:56] And the Jewish people knew that because of the story that they had had written and the story that their people had kind of lived out. And we see that throughout even the Old Testament. If you look through the Old Testament, it tells the story of the people of God throughout history before the time of Jesus. And so you go back to Nehemiah and you read this: "But in Your great mercy," speaking of God, "You did not abandon them to die in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud still led them forward by day. And the pillar of fire showed them the way through the night." God was present for His people in the midst of the wilderness and led them, even though they had turned their eyes away from their God. He had mercy to still lead and to guide and give them direction. David, you know, many years later, David, who in some ways, you know, God, it says in the Scriptures, had a heart after God.
[17:47] And yet for David, he stumbled so often, his eyes diverted from his God. Even though we see him as this example of faith, we see him also as this fallen, broken human being. And the beautiful part of our Scriptures is that you are a broken, fallen human being. And the idea that we, as we look to Jesus, might have these dips and these issues and these challenges that cause us and and that we on our own sinfulness kind of turn away from God, that we can go back to the Scriptures and recognize that even though that's the story of everybody in the Scriptures, God is still merciful and faithful. And this is what we read in the Psalms as David writes, "The Lord is merciful and compassionate.
[18:33] He's slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love." And then again, years later, as the Israelites, they rebelled against God and they ended up getting exiled from the Promised Land. And they're now again outside of God's hope and His promise for them. We read in Daniel this another explanation of God's faithfulness: "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him." And this is the story, but it's not just the story of the Scriptures, it's so many of your stories. So I wanna try something. This is, you know, this could go horribly wrong. But that's okay. When does that stop me? So, in just a second, not right now, but in just a second, if God has been faithful and merciful in your life, I just want you to raise your hand in just a second.
[19:26] I want it to be true. So just hold on and don't do this as like an exercise of like, "Oh, the pastor said it. We all just have to raise our hands." Like, do it as a, do you have an actual story? I'm not gonna ask you to share your story, but if somebody did, could you tell the story of how God's been merciful in your life? That even in the midst of whatever your journey has been, that you could pinpoint and say, "Yeah, this is where God, this is where He was merciful to me, to my family." And if you have that and you can testify to that, again, you're not gonna do it in this moment. This is not everybody perhaps, but if that's been your story somewhere in your journey, would you just raise your hand right now?
[20:12] Okay. Look around the room for a second. Everybody, keep your hand up. Keep your hand up. This is the nature of God's mercy and faithfulness, is that it's here in this room. You can put your hands down, and the thing is that for each and every one of us, even when we don't really know and we're not fully sure that God has been faithful in our own life, sometimes we can look around us and we can ask and we can hear about the testimony of what He's done for others. And sometimes that, even just by nature of hearing, that gives us a glimpse of maybe how He actually has been faithful in our own life. 'Cause when we go back to Romans 12, when we go back to the beginning of this bit, Paul has made it really clear that because of God's mercies, our response to that is to bring ourselves to Him.
[21:05] Our response is to respond by giving ourselves over to God. This is the nature of our salvation. This is the nature of putting faith and trust in Him, that because of what He's done, we respond with ourselves, with our whole selves. And it all started, the story of our faith begins the moment of the resurrection. And Paul is clear on this, and as you've not caught this or heard this, you gotta realize the story of the Christian faith isn't just an ethereal idea that there's a God out there, that there's a heaven we hope to get to someday. The story of the Christian faith is a specific event.
[21:51] It hinges on a really specific, clear event and belief. And Paul, in Romans 5, he says this, he says, "God demonstrates His own love for us. This is His mercy for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." This is where it begins. And this is the cornerstone and this is the part of it. This is the stumbling block that when we talk with people, when I talk with people and what is our faith all about, it's about Jesus dying on the cross. He rose from the dead. If there's no resurrection, there's no Christian faith. If you don't authentically believe that Jesus was a real human being and that He rose from the dead, then all of this stuff is just hanging out and listening to good music.
[22:39] But it's not 'cause Jesus really did. And so at the cornerstone of who we are as a church and at the cornerstone of stepping into God's will for your life is this moment of decision and declaration. And when you cross this line of what God has for you, it becomes clear that you're on the adventure that He wants for every one of us. You know, just a couple chapters before, Paul goes into this idea of knowing God's will. He articulates what faith in Christ really is about. He says this in Romans 10, he says, "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you're made right with God.
[23:33] And it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved." And the fascinating thing is that for some of you, this kind of clarity maybe hasn't been a part of your experience. You thought that you could rest on the idea of just being in the church. This is enough, isn't it? It's great to be in the church, but that's not the point. The point is, Jesus. For some of you, you know, you grew up and you had that baptism as a baby and you had the faith of your family and you kind of rested on that, assuming that because of all of that, I'm somehow a good person enough that I'll experience the heaven and all those things are good. But that's not what this all hinges on.
[24:19] Giving your body over to God because of what He's done for you requires this declaration that Jesus is Lord. And not just in like a big sense, but in a personal sense that I'm willing to let Him be the Lord of my life. Let Him bring direction to my life. Let Him forgive the sins in my life, put Him in charge of my life because He has the best interests of me in mind. And so He's the Lord of my life. And God raised Him from the dead. Some of you, you know, the idea of just belief in God was enough. Hey, I believe in God. And you know, people can ask you, "Do you believe in God?"
[25:05] Of course you believe in God. All sorts of people believe in God. The believing in God isn't what's at stake here. I mean, I don't wanna push too far in on this, but you gotta know even the demons believe in God, and you're not a demon. Let's just be clear. The point is that we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. And when that happens, when that belief sets in, when we set Jesus as our Lord, that's the moment that we cross the line of faith. And when you have questions or when your friend has questions or your neighbor has questions or your kids have questions and there's so many more confusing things about faith, like, "Well, there's all that bit in Revelation that I'm not quite sure on. Do I have to understand that before I put faith?" No, Paul's clear. It's really clear. It's early on.
[25:52] It's this early step. It's you believe that Jesus is Lord, you made Him Lord of your life. You believe that He actually rose from the dead. That's the moment. This is when you start. This is giving yourself over to God. You should do that. Yeah. But there's a lot of complicated parts in the early part, that Genesis and the Exodus stuff, like, "I'm not sure I believe all of that." That's okay. You're on the journey. The point isn't that you sign on and believe and know and have everything figured out. And in fact, newsflash, the journey is one of learning a lot along the way, but God is faithful through all the seasons and you need to know that Jesus is Lord, God raised Him from the dead. And this is the invitation to participate.
[26:37] And so what I want to do for a moment, in just a moment, is for some of you, you've had questions or you've not been sure and it's been kind of confusing and your faith is like there's something there, but you've not really made this clear move and this declaration, I just wanna make space in this service just to make that an honest stepping stone where you can cross that line and say, "Yeah, this is, I'm in for this. I'm still figuring other things out, but I'm in for this." And I wanna make sure that you have that moment because I think that's an important clear line to step. Because what happens is there's so many uncertainties in life and there's so many questions that crop up and there's so much where you don't know if you've done it right or if you're on the right track and all those things we're gonna talk about.
[27:23] But it starts with making sure that you and me have clearly said that Jesus is gonna be Lord. And I believe that God raised Him from the dead. And if you would so choose to make that declaration even in a room like this on a Sunday morning like today, then you are right with God and you are saved and you are a part of His family. But don't rest on anything other than this. Don't rest on anything else that you've thought up until this moment. This is clear and Paul is clear, and this is the cornerstone of our faith. It's in Jesus. And so be clear in your faith in Him.
[28:11] And from that God works in our lives, in our hearts. And from that we'll discover He will give us direction for all things. So would you bow your head with me for this moment? Because I know in a room like this, there are some of us, some of you who there's some uncertainty in the midst of all of this, and you really do want to clarify, maybe even for the first time, that, "Yeah, I'm in for this," that you really do want Jesus to be your Lord. And you really do believe that God raised Him from the dead and it's been a little fuzzy, but in this moment, you know for sure, and I want you to pray along with me here in just a moment.
[29:05] But if that's you and you want to pray along with me, just so I know who's praying with me, do you mind just kind of looking up and just kind of gimme a little wave with your hand just for a second? Yeah. Okay, great. That's a lot of people. For all of you, if you would just join with me and join with the Church of Jesus Christ, those of us that have been following Him and have believed this for many, many years or even for many months or even just for many days, we want to pray with you in this moment to declare your faith. And so just join with me in the quietness of your own heart. Pray this: Jesus, You are the Lord of my life.
[29:54] I can't do this on my own. I don't know what this all entails, but I know this, that You are the one that I want to give everything to, and my own sinfulness needs forgiving. And I'm grateful that because of You that can happen. And God, I believe, I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It's not an idea. I believe that it actually happened, and my faith is in Jesus. We pray these things in Your name. Amen.