Discovering the will of God is less about finding a specific answer for every small decision and more about surrendering to His overarching purpose. When we pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and commit our lives to Him as a living sacrifice, we can rest in His sovereign ability to direct our paths. God is perfectly capable of arranging circumstances, even through apparent coincidences, to achieve His plan in our lives. By focusing on living a godly life and trusting Him, we allow Him to work His purposes through us, just as He did through the lives of Ruth and Boaz.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:01] From the book of Ruth, what we will do is read the first seven verses of chapter two. But I’m addressing a different question tonight than from the morning. We’re looking at mothers and mothers-in-law this morning, but tonight rather the question is how can you know that what you’re planning to do or what you’re wanting to do is the very purpose that God wants you to do? How do you discover the will of God? In my own history, there was a period of time when our church down in Adelaide, there’s a big Baptist church where there was an endeavour, a Christian endeavour that I was a part of. Young people, 14, 15, 16, that age group. And there came a visiting speaker for the church who was the new principal at the local Bible college, but he was rumoured to be a bit charismatic.

[00:00:59] And so the heavies of the church decided that they would not let him preach in the main service, but they did have a concession and let him come and speak before the morning service to the Christian endeavour where I was present and my friends. And he spoke on the filling with the Holy Spirit. He spoke on finding what God wants as the Spirit leads you. And something happened in that group and a little revival amongst our young people broke out. And one of the things that happened in that group is that we became conscious of wanting to do what God’s will was. We were conscious of finding the will of God. And some of my friends, we were at that age where I was 16, so sometimes I rode my bicycle and sometimes I drove someone’s car. I was at that age of sometimes riding a bicycle.

[00:01:57] And there was a time I was riding a bicycle home and another of my friends was doing the same, but he stopped at a corner and he didn’t know which way to ride home. and asked, what was he doing? He was sitting on his bike waiting and praying. And he was praying for God to show him which way to go home. Now, to me, that was quite an amazing sight to see him, you know, just a picture of that fellow sitting on his bike trying to pray to know which way to go home. God didn’t answer anything. He just had to ride home and pick one way. now we went through a stage I reckon the group of us who are super spiritual in that group always trying to find God’s will exactly and the frustration we actually learned is that God doesn’t always choose to answer in every detail

[00:02:55] and so the question is how do you find the will of God if God doesn’t say anything and what about the examples in the scriptures where it’s obvious that someone has found the will of God in retrospect you have to say the same about Boaz because the child of Boaz and Ruth after they’re married produced is the father of Jesse and Jesse is the father of David and David is the ancestor of Jesus and when you read the genealogies of Jesus there’s the name Ruth So you have to say that Boaz found the will of God. But it wasn’t because the text actually tells us that he was under the tree and a voice came and said, marry Ruth. It didn’t happen. But he did find God’s purpose. So my first point, I think, as we read this, and we read a bit about Boaz, is to realise what’s missing in the narrative

[00:03:58] as to his finding the will of God. He’s just assuming it, and it does happen. Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech. That’s the clan that coming into the Promised Land was given that area where is Bethlehem, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain, that’s following up the reapers and getting all the extra scraps, in whose sight I shall find favour. Now I notice here that Ruth, as a type of girl, is rather aware of the possibilities. I think, I’m not sure whether I’m not reading this into it, but I think it’s also telling us that she had that feminine ability to tell when there’s a man that’s watching. But here she is, and she says, let me go and be there in collecting up all the gleanings,

[00:05:00] in where there’ll be a man in whose sight I shall find favour. Now, what principle is there that we can draw out of that storyline? Now perhaps I’m only guessing. You can have your own judgement. But I think one thing that I’m instructed from this storyline is that when God does the will of God, when he brings about his purposes, he doesn’t necessarily not cater for what are natural factors in the scene. And Ruth is there. She’s found herself in the area of the fields which belongs to Boaz, but she’s aware that she’s going to be gleaning in whose sight I shall find favour. I think there’s a natural happenstance that’s happening there, but she also has that feminine intuition to realise the possible connections. And so Naomi said to her, go my daughter.

[00:06:02] This morning’s message was on being a good mother-in-law is when you can release your daughters-in-law to be who they are. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz. So once again we find that in this storyline, which certainly is about the purposes of God being done, nonetheless there’s a coincidence she happened to find herself in that right part doing the reaping. What I’m learning from all of this is that if you really want to find the will of God, I think if you’re going to really stress it out that you want to do the will of God, put your effort into praying for God’s will to be done but not telling him how. Put your effort into being a prayerful person to find his will. That’s a good thing to do.

[00:06:54] Nothing wrong with someone who’s always saying, Lord, help me to know what’s to do. But don’t expect he’ll necessarily tell you with a voice from behind the clouds or by anything that might have appeared to you to be a circumstantial thing. Just leave that with God. I think when you really make God know that you’re willing to do his will, you can sort of relax and let him do his part. And it won’t necessarily be that there’ll be a clap of thunder and something very special that marks it out. More what is the background to your finding the will of God was how you made him know that you wanted to do his will. I’ve spent a bit of time checking up on my own ideas here. But how do you know about this finding God’s will? Well, one way is if you read between the lines in the Lord’s Prayer.

[00:07:51] And when we, many of us have been grown up, when I was young, they almost said the Lord’s Prayer every service. But there’s something in the Lord’s Prayer that we can take a note of here. We’ll put up, there’s a couple of versions of the Lord’s Prayer. put one up please on the screen and here is the Lord’s Prayer a part of it at least that’s here in Luke O Father, hallowed be your name your kingdom come give us each day our daily bread in other words provide for us daily and forgive us our sins as we forgive others who are indebted to us let’s go to the other one which I think is probably Matthew is it Matthew 6 verses 9 to 23 our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven the part of what we need to do in our prayers which would be copying the example

[00:08:51] illustration here in the Lord’s Prayer is that we pray for God to have his will for us you may not know exactly what that will is involved in fact I think it’s better rather than saying is it my will that I ride home this way or ride home that way or is it your will that I go to this university and not that university yes pray about those things but he doesn’t need necessarily to give a flash of revelation if you’re prayerful about what you’re doing you leave it in his hands and let him be someone who orders all the circumstances and gets you to where he wants may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven do you perceive it’s a very global, very big prayer may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven that includes all your little circumstances and you can trust God because I think

[00:09:49] rather than thinking of God’s will as a specific there’s a time when he does show you specifics but I think it’s better to think of his will in terms of his purposes what is his purpose and you’re actually saying to him I want you to achieve your purposes with me it’s actually a far deeper sort of surrender to the will of God it’s a bit like Romans 12 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body hang on a moment Romans 12 and verse 1 not I beseech you, how’s it go he’s calling on the Christians that they surrender their bodies as a living sacrifice I appeal to you therefore, thank you brothers by the mercies of God that present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is the spiritual thing to do which is your spiritual worship

[00:10:47] and when we give to God everything and tell him you’re really wanting his purposes to be achieved through you he steps into the scene and he’ll bully the circumstances to let it happen even if you had the wrong idea it’s amazing how God could turn things around and get you to do what he was wanting you to do in that little group down there in Adelaide these ones, 16 year olds we began to meet every day for prayer and we used to pray and one of the number of us was a baby Christian because he’d been at school and a friend of his at school who went through this revival time something changed in his character and his friend, his non-Christian friend saw the difference and he came along to our church and along to our group and he said he wanted to find out what had happened to his friend and he became a Christian

[00:11:45] and this fellow started reading the Bible and as he read the Bible he read a spot that talked about looking after the widows and the fatherless now he had not been a Christian long enough to know that you don’t necessarily do everything in the Bible actually you should he just read and said oh that’s the agenda so when he came to our meeting as we were now meeting every day and for prayer he said oh we’re meant to be visiting the widows and the fatherless he found it in the book of James and he gave the lead this new Christian to the group and we found ourselves out with a widow to so and so’s place cleaning up a backyard and doing things and he’d get a list of the widows the word of God said it if you were to find God’s will I’ll give you a good way to do it just keep doing what the Bible says

[00:12:40] it’s sort of a different way around than thinking of God’s will as I’ve discovered this to do and not that one and not this one but this one just keep doing what the Bible says And what you’re actually doing is you’re throwing the responsibility of the will of God over onto the Lord. And he will get his way, especially if you pray the Lord’s prayer, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And you just relax in God’s ability to get his will done. So be prayerful. I’m not asking us to be any less prayerful than you might have been thinking. Be prayerful, but then rest in God. Which is what the Lord’s prayers really do. Talks about great global things. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s a pretty sweeping prayer, is it not?

[00:13:34] And another part of it said, you know, give us this day our daily bread. As you see our needs, you provide us. Now funny things began to happen in that group. They’d been having all us teenagers or the teenagers that were teenagers each time. They put money in the collection, but they kept it. And it grew and grew and grew. And we had a fair bit of money in the bank that no one ever did anything with. And we didn’t have a good treasurer like this church has had at times. Who tells us how to, you know, where we can spend the money. But we decided, oh, we’ve got all this money. So we gave it away immediately to any missionaries who might have known. And we sort of felt suddenly there’s a purpose in us giving the offerings. It’s so we can actually do certain things with it.

[00:14:23] And the money used to be, this is just a lot of teenagers, you know, something like $1.56 a week or something, you know, that sort of amounts of money. And someone put a graph on the board of these little bits of money that was dribbling in. But suddenly when we had a change of attitude, that this is a part of doing the will of God, this overall purpose of giving to him, all that graph just started shooting up like this. And to this day, I don’t know where it came from. I didn’t have a lot of money. And as far as what to do, you know, one day on my bike this time, I was riding home. And as I rode, there was a fellow walking along the footpath and my bike got a flat tire in the front. Right at the moment, I came up to him and I recognized him. He was someone I knew from somewhere.

[00:15:16] He wasn’t a Christian. But the bike got a flat and I pulled over next to him and that started a chat. He came back to church and got converted. He had a whole bunch of non-Christian friends that he brought in. Talk about God’s kingdom being extended. But it wasn’t anything we did. We just got close to God and trusted him and something, things like that were happening. You can find the will of God if you think of it as giving over to him. Do your purpose through me, O Lord, whatever that is. Show me if you want to. If there’s something I need to know, he will. But don’t get all hectic about you have to find the will of God. Just make sure you’re living godly. Let’s go back to the storyline of Boaz in chapter 2 and of the book of Ruth.

[00:16:08] And it’s interesting about the way the Bible talks about Boaz because we discover that he’s quite a fellow who has a godly reputation. And he’s from the right tribe, Elimelech. And here he is. And let’s see if I can see it up there. And he’s a man who is respected. And here’s what he says when he comes out. He’s a bit of an owner of some of the land. He comes out, verse 5. And he said to the young man who is in charge of his reapers, Whose young woman is this? And the servant who is in charge of the reapers there said, This is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, the bloke reports, Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came and she’s been continuing from early morning until now, except for a short rest.

[00:17:09] Now you’ll find there, in terms of Boaz, it tells of him being a worthy fellow. It tells of him saying a really good greeting to the workers, and they’ll greet each other with a holy way of speaking in their culture. But also Ruth has got a reputation of having asked to come back and join the people of God. And there is a sense in which two people of good character recognise each other. There’s not any big clap of thunder from heaven, but God is actually having his way to bring together Ruth and Boaz, and he’s doing it by there being a recognition on the part of each of the appropriateness of the person. And that’s the part of the storyline. So sometimes finding the will of God isn’t only because you have a specific guidance that happens. That can happen.

[00:18:06] And sometimes God does move his Christian people by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is such a thing as being filled with the Spirit. And by the way, a lot of people have all sorts of differing ideas as to what to be filled with the Spirit. but I’ll tell you what it means if you repeatedly go to all the verses about being filled with the Spirit it means the Holy Spirit takes over and the event that happens is due to the Holy Spirit not just the person it’s a spectacular unusual event where the Holy Spirit makes something happen and you can count on God to do that with you if he wants to but that’s not something like being filled with the Spirit that you have to have any particular gift it’s not something that you necessarily have to speak in tongues. All of that is just doctrine

[00:18:52] that doesn’t coincide with how Corinthians teaches. Not everybody’s meant to have the gift of tongues, the book of Corinthians says, but we are all meant to be available to be filled with the Spirit. And to be filled with the Spirit is an availability to God to step in and use us if he wants to. It’s not something that you can actually make happen And as a matter of fact, it’s something that comes at his initiative. Maybe the whole thing that I’ve noticed in this chapter about God leading these two, Boaz and Ruth, together is a lot of it is the initiative of him, of God. And you can rest. You can rest in God to get his will done. You can be a person who prays the Lord’s Prayer. Actually, I don’t pray it word for word necessarily, but I pray the heart of what it says. Lord, you have your way.

[00:19:49] May your will be done. And when your heart speaks to heaven that you want God’s will to happen, he will get it to happen, whether just by the circumstances he arranges or whether by, if he wants you to actually do something, his Spirit can come on you and get you to do it and you’ll give yourself a surprise. It is amazing when you trust in God that he can fill you if he wants to and it’s his initiative, you can’t make it happen. But sometimes there are events that you do things that when you go home you say, how come I did that? Where did all that come from? The Holy Spirit is able to take you and fill you and use you. You rest in your availability to God to use you if he wants. I think there are some people who know that maybe more often than others, but I don’t think that means that they’re the only ones

[00:20:42] that find the will of God. I think that you can be a person who ends up saying after the day is done, after the month has been reviewed, that God has had his way in the long run. And that’s if you give him the willingness to do his will, to be surrendered, as in Romans 12, that you give over to him the right to control your life and he chooses the way that he gets it done. I happen to know in my life there have been times when the Holy Spirit has made me do things that were beyond me or things I didn’t think about. And when I get home I just praise him for what he knew to do. And I’m also glad I didn’t have to work it out and decide to do it necessarily. Sometimes you get a conviction and you have to step up to the conviction and do something, but other times he just gets it to happen anyway.

[00:21:37] What we need to do is to be prayerful that we want the will of God and like the Lord’s prayer example is to pray to him, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If you become a person that’s wanting the will of God, you can actually rest in him. If you’ve got the wrong direction, he’ll throw a brick in the path or he’ll do something that stops you from going the wrong way. It is amazing. God’s capacity to step in when he needs to. And so you rest in his leading. So think of the will of God as his purpose is being achieved, more than you sitting on a push bike saying this way home or that way home. He will show you, I think there’s a lot of decisions you have to make in life that actually wants us to make out of character that’s grown. He wants us to have built up a set of decisions

[00:22:34] that we are preset to make because we’ve read his word and we follow his paths and because we rest in him to bring about the right result. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Well, there’s quite a lot in this little book of Ruth and the storyline goes on but I don’t need to mention any more because we’ve got a few more chapters to go and the next few weeks in the morning services that’s what we’ll be doing. But it’s a beautiful story of God having his way with his people and the fascinating thing is that the demonstration persons in the storyline are two Moabitess girls who didn’t have good family backgrounds who did begin getting one when they married an Israelite boy and got to know his mother

[00:23:35] and in the circumstances of their husbands dying one of them in particular gets to that spot where she’s so close to her mother-in-law that she says, I will go with you back to Israel I will go wherever you go and where you go I will go and she actually says a rather dramatic thing you know, to call down on a judgement on her if ever she gets to die and has left being with her mother Naomi. She commits herself and in that commitment there is a secret to how God brought the circumstances for her not only to meet up with Boaz there’s a whole more story we’re yet to go through but in the circumstances of her meeting him also she has a child who becomes a forebear of the Lord Jesus Christ talk about being used of God don’t you think she will be in glory one day I think we can look her up

[00:24:39] get her to tell her story again we’ll pretend we don’t know too much and listen hard because she’ll be telling how God took someone who was a complete stranger to the God of the Bible the God of Israel and made her a forebear of the Saviour of the world what a testimony to take to heaven hey and because if you are willing to do his will and you’re willing to let him adjust your character so that you fit his will then you’ll find that you can leave the rest to him that’s a fantastic thing let’s have a word of prayer Heavenly Father I thank you for this some reflection that we’ve been able to have on the life of Ruth. Thank you for Boaz. Lord, it is an Old Testament example, not the church age, but nonetheless the time of people who loved you. And Lord, this fellow has a reputation of looking after his workers.

[00:25:45] He greets them with a godly greeting. They greet him back the same. He’s got a character that’s known to reverence the Lord. Father, help us to be people who get in line with your character. Help us to be people who pray as in the Lord’s Prayer and tell you again and again we want your will to be done. But then also give us the rest that you’re not going to leave it up to us to make all the right decisions, to know everything, but Lord, that you will step in and get your purposes done. We pray this in Jesus’ name.