By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 8am & 11am Svc, 2018-07-15

Text: John 7:1-13

One of the hardest things to do in life is making decisions that may affect our future. It may be a decision about your course of study or your career. It may be a decision to live overseas or migrate or to take up a new job offer or a new opportunity for service to God. In every decision you make you should always seek to do the right thing. But how can you know what God wants you to do? How can you avoid the nagging fear that you may be making a wrong decision – a decision that may set the course of your life on a perilous course?

To make matters worse, even when you know the right thing to do, sometimes you don’t do it at the right time. You act when you should wait, and then everything turns out badly because you had acted too soon. Or you wait when you should act, and the window of opportunity is already gone forever by the time you start to act.

One person that we can learn from is our Lord Jesus. He was always doing the right thing at the right time! Jesus began His earthly ministry at the age of 30. Then within His 3½ years of ministry He did everything that He came to do – to preach the kingdom of God, train His twelve disciples and to make an atonement for sin by His death on the cross. The Lord Jesus was always focused on doing the will of the. Father, and on doing it at the right time. One passage that shows this is John 7:1-13.

This passage relates an event that happened sometime in October of the year AD 29. This was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. It was one of their three Temple feasts that required all male Jews to come to Jerusalem. Jesus had visited Jerusalem many times before this: You may remember that in John chapter 2 He had cleansed the Temple while He was in Jerusalem. In chapter 5 He had healed a paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem.

But this miracle of healing greatly offended the Jewish leaders because He had done it on a Sabbath day. They also took offence at His claim to be the Son of God and at His rebuke of their sins. And so the authorities in Jerusalem began to oppose Jesus severely. They spread rumours that He was deceiving the people, and so no one dared to speak openly about Him anymore (vv.12,13).

All this forms the setting for what we see here in this passage. It would now be extremely dangerous for Jesus to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. The Jewish leaders were waiting for Jesus to come so that they could get hold of Him and kill Him (v.1). But Jesus was not at all afraid of being killed. In fact, six months later He would submit willingly to being arrested and put on trial by them, and then handed over to the Roman authorities to be crucified. And so He would go to Jerusalem, but only at the right time. This brings us now to the first significant thing that this passage reveals about Jesus:

It reveals that our Lord Jesus had a very keen understanding of when He should do anything. When His own brothers (who were actually His half-brothers, since they had the same mother but not the same father) suggested that He should go to Judaea with them and reveal Himself to the world by doing miracles there, His reply was, “My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.” (John 7:6) But later on, when the time was right, He did go to Judaea and perform many great miracles there – including the healing of a man who was born blind in chapter 9, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11. What Jesus said to them in this verse indicates that He was living by God’s time table, not theirs. 

Secondly, this passage reveals that our Lord Jesus had a keen sense of the way He should do anything. Look at vv.9,10 – “When He had said these words unto them, He abode still in Galilee. But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” Did Jesus suddenly change His mind about going to Jerusalem? No He did not. He had already decided to go there ‘not openly but in secret.’ i.e. without any fanfare or publicity.

The brothers of Jesus had a totally different agenda from Him – they wanted Him to have maximum publicity. What do you think would happen if Jesus were to go to Jerusalem with them? They would bring much public attention to Him. This is clear from what they told Him in verse 4 – “For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If Thou do these things, shew Thyself to the world.” But doing this now would be premature and it would only bring disastrous results. Hence, our Lord wisely told them to go first, without Him. And He would then go by Himself later on.

Now, things would have been quite different if the brothers of Jesus shared the same priorities and purposes as Him – then He would have no problems going up with them to Jerusalem. But at this time they were still unbelievers. It was only later on, after Jesus had resurrected from the dead that His brothers believed in Him and truly understood His priorities and purposes (cf. Acts 1:14). In fact, two of them – James and Jude – went on to become inspired writers of the books which bear their names in our Bible. But here in John chapter 7 they were still unbelievers, and thus their attitudes and priorities in life were quite different from His. What mattered most to them was for Jesus to gain more fame, popularity and power. Then they would be able to enjoy all the benefits this would bring to them as His family members.

Can the brothers of Jesus be blamed for thinking like this? No, because they were merely following the way of the world.  This is brought out plainly in the reply that Jesus gave them in v.7 – “The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” What Jesus said to them here indicates that He was living by the way of God which differs with the way of the world. 

And for Jesus, living by the way of God meant going up to Jerusalem despite knowing all the awful trials and suffering that would befall Him there, because He had come into this world to die for our sins on the cross. What mattered most to Him was to do only what God wants Him to do.

Is that what matters most to you too? Have you surrendered your life to do all that God wants you to do, even when it is contrary to what you want to do, or to what others would want you to do? Are you living by the way of God or by the way of the world?  How then can you know what God wants you to do? Here are six basic steps…

1. Surrender your own will. Begin by having the right attitude – the attitude that Christ had when He prayed at Gethsemane: “Not My will, but Thine be done.” (Luke 22:42) This was also Paul’s attitude when he met Christ on the road to Damascus. He said – “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6) And when God shows you what He would have you to do, be ready to respond, “O Lord, Thy will be done.” Surrendering your will means that you willingly accept whatever God has in store for you, even if it is not to your liking, and even if it goes against your own personal preference.

Sometimes when a person comes to me for biblical advice to handle a situation, I discover that what he really wants is an endorsement of what he had already planned to do. And so when my advice turns out to be different from that, he argues with me and refuses to heed my advice. If you are really sincere about wanting to discern God’s will for your life, you must not do that. You must settle it right within your heart that what you want is to know God’s will and do it. This is the first step to discern the will of God. When you have done this, you can go on to the second step which is to:

2. Ask God to direct your path and trust that He will really do so. This is based on Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” I want you to observe that the last part of v.6 does not say, “…He may direct thy paths” but ‘…He shall direct thy paths.’ This shows that God is more willing to give you all the guidance you need than you are to seek after it.

Listen to what He says in Psalm 32:8 – “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye.” But please, don’t expect God to reveal His entire plan for your life. He will lead you only one step at a time. There is a good purpose for this – so that you will build a closer relationship with God by having to rely on Him to lead you all the way to the end of your life.

What you do after this step is important. People often want a quick solution. They want to get the answer from God in the shortest possible time and with the least amount of effort. So, when faced with a major decision they resort to using unscriptural methods to discern God’s will. They ask for a special sign from God (like Gideon did when he put out a sheep’s fleece overnight, Judges 6:37) or they draw lots. One method that some have used is bibliomancy. A person asks God to show His will for a decision, then he flips the Bible randomly to any page and points at random to any verse. Then he reads it to see what message it has for him.

You may have heard the story of someone whose finger landed on Matthew 27:5 (“And [Judas] … went and hanged himself.”) Not satisfied with the answer, he tried it again. This time his finger landed on Luke 10:37 (“Go, and do thou likewise.”) Imagine how shocked he was when the next verse he got through bibliomancy was John 13:27 (“That thou doest, do quickly.”) This is the wrong way to seek God’s will for your life. The right way to seek God’s will requires time and patience to carry out the next few steps:

3. Pray for wisdom. James 1:5 says – “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge which is rightly applied. For instance you may know the Bible quite well. But the Bible is not an almanac where you can find every specific detail about your life. So, if you are a young person seeking to know what God’s will for your life is, you won’t find it spelled out in the Bible. What you will find instead are some useful guiding principles that help to narrow down your options by eliminating all options that are morally wrong. It takes wisdom to know which guiding principles in it are most relevant to the situation you are facing, and how they can be used to make the right decision.

For instance, when choosing a life partner, your prayer for wisdom may lead you to Proverbs 31:30 (“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.”) or it may lead you to 1 Samuel 16:7 (“Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”) The principle behind these verses is the same: What God wants you to look for is not someone with good looks but one who has good character and godliness. The world puts far too much value on externals – but we must not be conformed to the world’s way of evaluating people.

And be careful how you apply God’s Word to your situation. An English pastor once promised to serve in a church in north England, but after that he received an invitation to a more attractive post in south England. As he was wondering what he should do, he read a verse from Isaiah 43:6 – “I will say to the north, Give up…” And so he thought that God will cause the northern church to terminate his prior commitment so that he might be free to take up the more attractive offer from the southern church. But this didn’t happen. When the pastor looked again at Isaiah 43:6 he saw that the next part said, “…and to the south, Keep not back:” He also realized that the verse is all about the regathering of God’s people from exile back to the Promised Land. How foolish he was to have taken it out of context!

Wisdom requires us to use our minds well. There are no short cuts. We need to ask the right questions. We need to give careful thought and prayer to each portion of Scripture. Doing all this requires time and effort. This is one reason why some are unable to discern God’s will for their lives – they are too impatient or lazy. They do not want to put in the time and effort that is needed for it. They want God’s answer to come to them instantly like a bolt out of the blue, in the form of a sign, a dream or vision or a so-called word of prophecy.

But God has given us renewed minds that are capable of evaluating several options and discerning the best one to choose. He expects us to reason things out carefully with the wisdom He gives us to make sound judgements. We better learn to use this God-given mind well to make such judgements, because one day we will have to judge angels and the world when we reign with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:2). And if we worry that our judgements are not sound enough, there is another help that God has given us – fellow believers. This brings us to the next step, which is to…

4. Consult spiritually mature believers for their advice. Proverbs 15:22 tells us – “Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.” Don’t choose people who will say only what you want to hear, but choose those who are willing to give advice that you may not like to hear.

Young people should not leave out one important resource you have for wise counsel: Your parents. Why? Because they usually have a lot more valuable experience, and more importantly, they have your interests at heart. Proverbs 1:8-9 says – “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.” Other sources of Christian counsel include pastors, your BS leader or SS teacher, and good Christian books. But be careful to check that what they say is aligned with Scripture before you apply it. When you have taken this step, then you can go on to the next…

5. Carefully consider the circumstances you are in. God may reveal His will for you by opening doors of opportunity. As He said to the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3:8 – “behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it…” But be careful –Satan can open doors too, and they are called temptations. Just because someone offers you a job which does not require any work but has an attractive compensation, this does not mean that it is God’s will for you. It may involve sinful practices and cause you to compromise your Christian testimony. Make sure that you obtain as much information as you can about any offer before you make any assessment of it.

Sometimes, there may be several options open to you. How can you know which is the one that God wants you to take? You can trace the path that God has been leading you from the past to the present – Are there any consistent indications which seem to favour one of your options above all the rest? Weigh the pros and cons of each option – write down all the possible outcomes of taking each of them. If all their outcomes are good, then look for the best one among them. But if the outcomes are all bad, then look for the option which has the least unfavourable outcome.

At this point it would be good to address the question: What if I choose the wrong option? Do you sometimes wonder whether you had made a hasty decision in the past that is not according to God’s will? Do you wonder what your life would like be today if you had chosen a different course of study or career, or if you had married a different person, or if you had lived in a different neighbourhood, or if you had attended a different church? Should this make you feel very worried that you may have missed God’s will for your life? – That you are now doomed to settle for ‘second best’?

The answer to this is found in understanding God’s sovereignty. We need not be anxious because Romans 8:28 assures us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” All things have already been determined by God. God’s will for your life therefore includes all your personal responses and even the errors you had made in discerning His will. Everything has been taken into account. God does not have to modify His plan for your life if you happen to choose wrongly. Nothing can ever stop Him from accomplishing His purposes. Psalm 23 assures us that the Lord is our Shepherd who leads us all the way, and He lovingly ensures that we will not miss any blessing that He has planned for us to have. We can therefore say with confidence, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (v.6)

But someone may then ask: “If God has already known and ordained every choice I make, does this mean that I can choose any way I like, without bothering to discern God’s will?” The answer is No. You are still responsible to make the best possible choice you can make, trusting that what you choose is indeed God’s will for your life. And going through these five steps will help you to arrive at the option which is the most likely choice God wants you to make. After you have done that, you must then go on to the sixth step – and this is the one which is most subjective:

6. Be sensitive to the inner conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will give you a deep-seated peace in your heart when you are in line with God’s will. Thus, you should see if choosing that particular option in question brings peace to your heart. If you have a sense of restless unease instead of peace then it may not be the choice you should make.

Paul described this in 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 – “Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother…” One way to tell whether the peace or unease that you feel is from the Holy Spirit is to see how long it persists. The Spirit’s conviction is not just a momentary feeling or passing impulse. It is a lasting impression that refuses to go away. It will keep coming back to you until you take notice of His conviction.

Thus we have seen the six basic steps for discerning what God wants you to do: 1. Surrender your own will; 2. Ask God to direct your path; 3. Pray for wisdom; 4. Consult spiritually mature believers; 5. Consider the circumstances you are in; and 6. Be sensitive to the Spirit’s conviction. Now we come to the most important part.

Discerning what God wants you to do is of no use until you actually do it. When God shows you His will, it is not for you to waste time deciding whether you should really carry it out or not. The language of submission is: “God has said it. That settles it. I will now do it.” Do not ever think that you are wiser than God, and try to modify His will to suit your own situation for your own convenience.

And as you commit yourself to do the will of God, please make the Lord Jesus your example for the manner in which you do it. To our Lord Jesus, doing the will of God was even more important than His own life. We have seen this revealed in our passage of study in John chapter 7 – Jesus went up to Jerusalem despite knowing all the trials and suffering He would have to face there from the Jews who hated Him. Never before has anyone ever given up so much for the sake of doing the will of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ!

If Jesus has gone through so much to do God’s will to save you from sin and eternal death, is it too much for you to do God’s will instead of your own will? Perhaps there may be someone here who is still not saved. Well, God’s will for you right now is that you turn from your sins without delay and turn to Jesus alone for salvation. This is the right thing to do, and there is no better time to do it than right now. Many people have put off doing this until it is too late – time runs out for them!

If you are already saved, will you commit yourself now to do the will of God for your life? God has a special purpose for each of us to fulfill in life, which will contribute towards His grand eternal plan. Living the Christian life means finding out that particular purpose He has set for you, and then fulfilling it. You must live your life with a sense of mission. There must be a good reason why the Lord has placed you where you are right now, why He has given you unique gifts and bestowed you with certain abilities. Will you commit yourself to find out what He wants you to accomplish with all these things? Will you seek to do the right thing at the right time? May the Lord speak to our hearts as we ponder over this.

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