Chapter 2

THE CRUCIAL FIRST STEP

The will of God is no longer a problem for me—and it need not be one for you either. Let’s start at the beginning and see what God has to reveal to us through His Word.

The apostle Peter highlighted the concept of the will of God for us in 2 Peter 3:9. Throughout his second epistle, Peter warned about false prophets, whom he called “springs without water” and “dogs returning to their vomit.” Peter said that it is characteristic of these “springs” (which would seem to be sources of life-giving water but are not) or these “dogs” (who go back and lick up the vomit of their own once-forsaken sins) to deny two things. First, an apostate or false teacher denies the deity of Jesus Christ, denies “the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1). The second thing that an apostate denies is the second coming of Christ (3:1–10). In mockery he says, “Where is the promise of His coming? All of you fanatics are running around saying that Jesus is coming. Where is He? I don’t see Him.” He reasons on this basis: “Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” He says, “Nothing will ever change, for it never has. I will never die. I never have. I couldn’t possibly get cancer. I never had it before.”

Peter would respond, “You forgot about the flood. All things haven’t continued as they were.” And they are not going to continue as they were! God is going to intervene in a great fiery judgment (2 Peter 3:10). “The Lord is not slow about His promise” (v. 9). In other words, just because we don’t see God invading the world in judgment, it doesn’t mean that He can’t. It doesn’t mean that He made a promise and won’t keep it. His delay doesn’t mean that He is either impotent or unfaithful but that He is long-suffering, “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (v. 9).

This is the first thing about God’s will: He wants people to be saved. So much so that He stays His judgment. Paul said, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3–4).

It is God’s will that people be saved. If you are stumbling around in life and tossing up some periodic prayers to God but have never come on your knees to the foot of the cross and met Jesus Christ, then you are not even in the beginning of God’s will. God has no reason to reveal to you anything particular about your life because you have not met qualification number one: salvation.

God Leads His Own

A well-known New York restaurant and nightclub owner made this statement in a news interview: “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the Big Man upstairs.”

Of course, that is a true statement when you consider what the apostle Paul meant when he told the pagan Athenians that it is “in Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). Christ is the sustainer of the entire universe, and nobody would be where he or she is today without Him.

But as to God personally leading those who have not received Jesus Christ as personal Savior, there is not a line of Scripture to indicate that this ordinarily happens.

Instead we read, “When [Christ] puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4).

Without Christ, people are strangers to God. They are rebels against God, foreigners in God’s universe.

The Bible says that God’s will is that people be saved, and that is where it all starts. Jesus made this clear in Mark 3:31–35. He was already teaching inside a building when His brothers and mother arrived. The multitude was sitting on the inside, and it was so crowded that His family could not get to Him. Someone said to Him, “Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.”

He answered, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”

I am sure the crowd’s reaction was something like, “What kind of question is this? Everybody knows His mother and brothers!”

If Jesus’ first reaction did not shock them, His next words did. Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers!”

Each person probably looked at the other and thought, Who, me?

Then He qualified it. “For whoever does the will of God … is My brother and sister and mother.”

What was Jesus saying? He was teaching that in order to be related to Him, one has to do the will of God. Turn it around. To do the will of God, one has to be related to Jesus.

The apostle John said, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.… The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15–17). Who is going to live forever? Those who do the will of God. But who is the only One who can give eternal life? Jesus Christ. The very first step in walking the pathway of God’s will, then, is that you be saved.

If you have never committed your life to Jesus Christ, you cannot expect anything at all from God. He owes you nothing. He is not obligated to you in even the slightest sense.

People reject this. The doctrine of salvation is unpopular because it includes the recognition of sin. Nobody likes to admit sin. And many people resist the idea that they need to be saved.

Confrontation at UCLA

I will never forget sharing in an evangelism blitz with Campus Crusade for Christ on the UCLA campus. About two thousand kids went person to person, sharing the gospel. At the time, UCLA was a stronghold of Judaism—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed. It was also known for its Communist groups. UCLA was thus not exactly the most open place to the gospel, but away we went, sharing Christ. Soon a front-page article appeared in the Daily Bruin with a cartoon showing a bruin (UCLA’s bear mascot) lying on the ground with a Christian driving his heel into the bruin’s neck. Included in the issue was an article written by the dean warning all those on campus talking about Jesus Christ to cease immediately or the administration would take “direct action.” The dean cited an article of the university’s constitution that said the “campus is not to be used for religious conversion.”

Talking about sin and salvation is offensive to some people. Who wants to hear about sin? Most people mask it. Sin is not sin. Oh no. Sin is a “prenatal predilection,” psychologists tell us. Sin is an “idiosyncrasy of individuality.” Sin is “poor secretion of the endocrine glands”!

But God’s will is that people be saved! And basic to salvation is the recognition of sin. This lays it right at your feet. Either you are not saved from your sin and you need to come to Christ because that is God’s will, or you are saved and need to reach others with the message of salvation. There is a world out there that needs Jesus Christ. God wants them to be saved, and you and I are the vehicles for the transportation of the gospel. That is God’s will.

You say you do not know what God’s will is, but I’ll tell you what it is. Above all it is that you know Christ and then that your neighbors hear about Christ. That is His will. So often we sit around twiddling our thumbs, dreaming about God’s will in some distant future when we are not even willing to stand up on our own two feet, walk down the street, and do God’s will right now.

God so desired that people be saved that He gave the One whom He loved most, His Son, and sent Him to die on a cross. That is the measure of His love, and that indicates how much He wills that people be saved!