[00:00:02] Welcome to Gracious Words. Gracious Words is taken from the Weekly Women's Bible Study
[00:00:14] taught by Cheryl Brodersen at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.
[00:00:19] We're behold to glory God in the face of Christ. It shows us who you are. We're feeling who you are.
[00:00:34] On today's program, we'll look at discerning the will of God. We often have misconceptions about what it should and shouldn't look like.
[00:00:42] One thing is certain, God is for us and His will for us is good and superior to our own.
[00:01:09] And now here is part 1 of Cheryl's message titled, Discerning the Will of God.
[00:01:19] If you see me walking gingerly, it's because Sunday I threw my back out.
[00:01:26] It's so funny because my son calls me up and he's like, Mom, where's your scripture?
[00:01:31] The Lord laid affliction on our back and brought us out to a rich fulfillment unlike Psalm 66.
[00:01:40] I know this, what? So anyway, I'm just being real careful with my back today.
[00:01:47] And it's so funny because it happened Sunday, right?
[00:01:50] My daughter was out. My youngest daughter had her baby shower on Saturday, which was really fun.
[00:01:57] And of course, mother being supermom tried to load the car, tried to unload the car, tried to move the heavy boxes.
[00:02:06] Because I want to be supermom. I want to be somebody's messiah.
[00:02:11] And so anyway, somehow I did something.
[00:02:15] And so Sunday I was getting up, I was brushing my teeth, I was completely dressed, hair washed, makeup on.
[00:02:23] And I just went to brush my teeth and all of a sudden it was like a lightning bolt, you know how that does it?
[00:02:27] And all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I'm going to throw up or I'm going to faint.
[00:02:30] So anyway, Brian also told me that Sunday morning, oh, Cheryl, I've got to go out to my area.
[00:02:34] And I'm like, what? You've been gone three weeks in a row. Please don't leave me.
[00:02:38] Please stay home. And he's like, I'm sorry, this is a planning meeting. I have to go.
[00:02:42] Anyway, of course he leaves, right? Of course he leaves Monday.
[00:02:46] Monday my smoke detectors decided they need new batteries.
[00:02:50] So they started going off every 20 minutes between one minute to five minutes, right?
[00:02:58] So you know what I did? I just kept calling him and holding up the phone.
[00:03:02] I thought, you know what? When one member suffers, they all suffer.
[00:03:06] And I mean it was going off. My dog likes to sleep downstairs to kind of guard.
[00:03:12] Next thing I know, I mean the smoke detectors were going off for the fifth time.
[00:03:15] He comes running in my room and for the first time ever jumps on my bed since I'm sleeping here.
[00:03:20] I claim it. So the dog slept, well actually Brian ended up coming home turning the breaker off.
[00:03:25] The dog slept between us all night. And it was so funny because Brian snores and the dog's like,
[00:03:33] because you know woke me up and the dog's like, and he's like sniffing Brian like,
[00:03:38] like what's going on here? Is this a command? Am I supposed to go somewhere do something?
[00:03:45] Actually he was talking to sleep. He was like, Judah, which is my grandson, Judah, our grandson.
[00:03:51] But I was glad he came home. He ended up coming home each night.
[00:03:55] And the smoke detectors will be fixed tomorrow, which is I'm glad I'm not there right now at my house.
[00:04:01] But anyway, you know, isn't that just like when it rains at four a sea of these days
[00:04:05] and then I didn't tell you the clincher? So that's Monday, right?
[00:04:08] My daughter, Kelsey goes into false labor. Big time. Big like it comes on suddenly.
[00:04:14] She's doing somebody's hair. She has to stop. My daughter, Kristen, who's out from New York,
[00:04:19] goes over finishes. My daughter, Kristen doesn't do hair. She goes over there.
[00:04:23] She finishes the appointment as best she can. Kelsey goes home.
[00:04:28] She takes a bath and they subside. Hallelujah because it would be a little too early.
[00:04:33] But anyway, it was just like seriously. But you know what we're going to be talking about today
[00:04:40] is these things that we think are our signs that were out of the will of God.
[00:04:46] A pulled back alarms going off. A daughter that goes into false labor.
[00:04:53] Are not necessarily the signs that were out of the will of God, but were smack dab right where God wants us.
[00:05:01] But the enemy is not happy. So we talked last week about how a lot of people have misguided notions
[00:05:08] when it comes to the will of the Lord. We talked about how so many think that God's will is inferior to our will.
[00:05:18] When in fact it's so superior, God wants better things for you than you want for yourself.
[00:05:24] And God knows by his fore knowledge because of his compassion and his concern for our best
[00:05:31] and his own reputation is on the line when it comes to his children.
[00:05:38] We also hold the misconception that we can inadvertently miss the will of God.
[00:05:45] I can't even tell you all the women that say to me, what if I missed the will of God?
[00:05:50] What if I married Herman and I was supposed to be with this twin Harry?
[00:05:55] I've had people actually, not those names. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
[00:06:00] But I've actually had people think that they've missed the will of God because it got difficult or it got hard.
[00:06:10] But the will of God is not like a train we need to catch.
[00:06:13] And we're not sure what train it is or what platform it will take off from or what the timetable is.
[00:06:21] When we lived in England, there was a place called Clapham Common.
[00:06:25] And I would go there and I would catch a train home from Clapham Common to Richmond Station.
[00:06:33] And I remember getting there and I was talking to a woman, she was walking me all the way to the platform
[00:06:38] and I was at the right platform. I got to the right platform but I was a little bit disturbed by what she was telling me
[00:06:45] and a little bit distracted. So when the first train came up, instead of reading where that one was going,
[00:06:50] I just jumped on. It's a train, I jumped on.
[00:06:54] Well we were living in England and I want to tell you that the phone numbers in England have a lot of digits.
[00:07:00] So I never memorized our phone number.
[00:07:02] It was when cell phones were this big and we would give it to one person that day
[00:07:09] and I was not the person that had the cell phone that day.
[00:07:12] So I jumped on the train only to realize that it is speeding past every place that's familiar to me.
[00:07:21] Like I was on the fast train going somewhere in England that I'd never been before
[00:07:27] with no way, I didn't even know my address where I was living.
[00:07:31] We just moved to communicate to family where I was.
[00:07:35] I was all by myself or who I was.
[00:07:39] I didn't know and so here's this train and I just began to pray.
[00:07:45] It took me over an hour out of my way fast.
[00:07:49] It took me a fast hour out of my way.
[00:07:51] I had no money and I was just praying, Lord I don't know what to do.
[00:07:56] It stopped and I just felt the spirit of the Lord say get off,
[00:08:00] walk across the bridge on the other side and catch the first train.
[00:08:03] And I forgot to read that train too.
[00:08:05] But I just jumped on and hallelujah the train took me quickly to a place that was walkable to the place I was staying, living.
[00:08:15] But you know that's not how the Lord's will is.
[00:08:19] Like I was at the right platform.
[00:08:20] I just jumped on the wrong train.
[00:08:24] You cannot miss the will of God unless you want to.
[00:08:30] Unless you want to.
[00:08:32] I think about how when you go to the car wash and I don't know about you,
[00:08:40] but when you have to line up your wheels with those metal grids and those guys are always like back up and I'm like,
[00:08:49] I tried so hard, but I can't see the metal grid.
[00:08:53] You know and they're trying to direct and they're kind of like, you know, like, this woman, what are we going to do?
[00:08:59] So it's so hard, but that's not the will of God is not that hard to align your life with.
[00:09:05] It's not like those car washes.
[00:09:09] Other times we conclude that our deficits or struggles, drawbacks, rejection and quarrels are signs that we are outside God's will.
[00:09:17] Instead of the very goats that God is using to get us in his will.
[00:09:24] In Psalm 23, 4 David talks about God's staff.
[00:09:31] He said your rod and staff comfort me.
[00:09:37] Now a rod was only used as a weapon against a wolf or a predator.
[00:09:44] Never against the sheep. The sheep were never struck by the shepherd,
[00:09:50] but the shepherd would use the crook to draw the sheep back or help lift him if he fell over a ravine.
[00:10:00] And then he would use the other part of the staff.
[00:10:03] He would hold it out so that the sheep couldn't veer off the road.
[00:10:06] You know sometimes when you're on the freeway and you've got your GPS and it's like, stay on the 405.
[00:10:13] Stay on the 405 and you're like, why are you telling me this?
[00:10:17] You think I don't know. Like every 10 minutes, stay on there.
[00:10:19] And it's because the 605 is there and they just don't want to take any chances with you.
[00:10:25] The GPS does not trust you. I'm just saying.
[00:10:29] But that's what would happen. It would keep the sheep from taking that other path.
[00:10:33] He would just stick it out so that the sheep would just follow, especially at night.
[00:10:38] He would lean into the rod to know where to go.
[00:10:44] The rod also would gently prod the sheep to go a little faster, tap, tap, tap,
[00:10:52] to move over to the left, to move over to the right, keeping the sheep right in the will of the shepherd.
[00:11:01] God wants us in his will more than we even want to be in his will.
[00:11:07] In fact, it tells us in Psalm 233 that he leads us in the paths of righteousness for his namesake.
[00:11:16] In other words, God's reputation is on the line when it comes to you.
[00:11:22] He wants our lives to testify of his goodness, of the goodness of the shepherd towards the sheep.
[00:11:31] And God utilizes all sorts of means to get us in his will.
[00:11:37] And again, you cannot miss the will of God unless you purposely, defiantly, decidedly rebel against it and do not.
[00:11:54] It takes a deliberate act of your will to be out of God's will.
[00:11:58] In our lesson this week from Genesis 25 and 26, we see how God guides Rebecca and Isaac into his will using departures, delays, deficits, dilemmas, difficulties, his directives, denunciation, disagreements, and discoveries.
[00:12:19] Now when I can get all these like that, I know it's the Holy Spirit.
[00:12:23] Too often we conclude that the very instruments that God is using to get us perfectly centered in his will are the devices that are telling us we're out of the will of God.
[00:12:36] You know, we think because we pulled a muscle in our back, oh, what did I do wrong?
[00:12:41] Don't we go right there? What have I done wrong?
[00:12:43] Instead of Lord, how are you trying to direct me? What do you want me to do with this pain, with this place? How do you want to direct me?
[00:12:57] In Genesis 25 we find that once Isaac was married, Abraham remarried a woman named Katora and she bore Abraham six sons.
[00:13:06] Can I just personally say I'm so disappointed in Abraham getting married again?
[00:13:11] Why does he feel they need to get married at 135 again?
[00:13:16] I will say this, Nancy Sylvester, her father remarried at 90 to a woman in her 80s who had never been married.
[00:13:24] So don't give up single women.
[00:13:30] The fact that Abraham had these six more sons shows that the issue of barrenness was not Abraham's but Sarah's.
[00:13:39] It was never about Abraham having a son but having the son of covenant, the son of promise, the miraculous son which could only come through his covenant wife Sarah.
[00:13:55] God had chosen Sarah just as much as he chose Abraham to be the covenant mother of the son of promise.
[00:14:02] So Abraham sent all these sons to the east with provision. Perhaps he sent them to the land that he had come from, to his relatives, maybe even to the land of Nahor.
[00:14:15] And he did this while he was still alive. He determined that these other sons would not be competing errors with Isaac to the promises of God.
[00:14:24] Abraham knew that God's will was that Isaac alone would be the son of the divine covenant and heir to the land and all the promises of God.
[00:14:37] The will of God will often involve sacrifice, giving up, ascending away a separation, a departure.
[00:14:45] Though this can be emotionally wrenching to watch others leave, I have found when I try to hold what God is requiring of me, I only harm the thing I'm holding, cause self injury and delay the inevitable.
[00:15:04] Ishmael, who is already experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises and Isaac then buried Abraham another departure.
[00:15:11] Abraham dies and he's buried in the cave at Hebron where Sarah was buried.
[00:15:16] So we see that God used departures in Isaac's life to begin to direct him into his perfect will, the departure of his stepbrothers, the departure of his beloved father.
[00:15:33] The writer of Genesis then takes us back in verse 19 to a time about 15 years prior to Abraham's death.
[00:15:40] A time when Isaac and Rebecca, the chosen wife of Isaac, the one God handpicked had been barren.
[00:15:49] Abraham, Isaac and Rebecca have been waiting for over 20 years for a descendant that will receive all the promises of Abraham.
[00:16:00] So 35 years prior to Abraham's death, that was when Isaac married and then they waited 20 years.
[00:16:10] Isaac prayed for Rebecca.
[00:16:14] Now I love the fact that he did not look for an Egyptian maid.
[00:16:22] He prayed and prayed and prayed.
[00:16:26] I wonder when he started praying.
[00:16:28] After one month, after one year, after three years, after five years.
[00:16:34] I wonder what his prayer sounded like.
[00:16:36] If it started very calm, Lord please, you know how we start prayer?
[00:16:40] Lord just please do this.
[00:16:42] Lord would you heal my back?
[00:16:44] Lord would you heal my back?
[00:16:47] Lord would you please heal my back?
[00:16:50] You know how it gets stronger and stronger?
[00:16:52] I wonder if Isaac's prayers became more serious, more strong.
[00:17:01] I wonder what he said.
[00:17:03] I wonder how long he prayed the duration of one prayer, the length of his prayers.
[00:17:10] At some point as they waited, Isaac began to entreat and then plead because the word is plead.
[00:17:18] Not just pray but he plead with the Lord for Rebecca.
[00:17:23] The Lord granted his plea, verse 21, and Rebecca conceived.
[00:17:28] Here was God using Rebecca's bareness to elicit the attention of Isaac and Rebecca.
[00:17:35] God will often use deficits to get our attention.
[00:17:39] We usually look for natural solutions to our problems,
[00:17:42] but it is when we realize that we need divine help,
[00:17:47] that our soft prayers turn into entreaties and pleas.
[00:17:52] When God has our attention, our full attention, he can direct us.
[00:17:57] We read in John 6 that it was only when Philip realized the greatness of the deficit,
[00:18:04] 5,000 hungry men, no bread, no resources nearby,
[00:18:07] no money, no time that his attention was riveted on Jesus.
[00:18:14] And he was ready to obey and receive whatever directives Jesus gave him concerning feeding the people.
[00:18:24] As we move on, we realize that God also used the delay in Rebecca and Isaac's life.
[00:18:32] Had this pregnancy happened right away,
[00:18:35] would Rebecca have sought the Lord when the pregnancy got difficult?
[00:18:41] Or would she have thought, oh this is just natural, this is just what happens?
[00:18:45] But because she knew this pregnancy was a direct answer to prayer,
[00:18:50] when her womb just didn't feel right, she went to seek the Lord.
[00:18:56] Now, Rebecca feels that something is not right in this pregnancy.
[00:19:01] She's waited 20 years and something's not right.
[00:19:05] It's before the times of sonograms, I don't think I needed to tell you this,
[00:19:09] but it's before the times of sonograms.
[00:19:12] And she has no idea what she's carrying.
[00:19:14] Can you imagine? I know with one of my sons, I think it was his elbow
[00:19:19] and I would watch just this thing move across my stomach back and forth.
[00:19:24] But she's feeling all this uneasiness, all this activity in her womb.
[00:19:31] And I think people are saying, oh it's her first, she's waited 20 years.
[00:19:36] Of course she's a little nervous about this.
[00:19:38] But Rebecca is so serious. She's like, I'm going to go and seek the Lord.
[00:19:44] She specifically goes and seeks the Lord.
[00:19:47] It's almost like, Lord I am not moving until you tell me what is going on in my womb.
[00:19:56] Have you ever had a place like that?
[00:19:58] Lord, I cannot move until you tell me exactly what is going on.
[00:20:02] Why these circumstances?
[00:20:04] You know so many times we just try to persevere.
[00:20:07] But when your alarm is going off, your dog is sleeping in bed with you
[00:20:12] and your back is out and your daughter's having false labor.
[00:20:14] You have to say, Lord, what are you trying to tell me right now?
[00:20:20] What am I missing? What do I need to see?
[00:20:24] You have got my full attention, Lord. What do you want to say to me?
[00:20:30] Don't you love that the Lord always has a word that he spoke to Rebecca?
[00:20:37] Remember at this point, Isaac has not had any direct encounters with the Lord.
[00:20:42] He's received the promises. The others have been sent away.
[00:20:46] He knows the promises, the promises that were given to his father Abraham,
[00:20:51] but they have not been repeated to Isaac yet by God.
[00:20:56] They have only been told him by his father.
[00:21:00] Though he's received the promises of God, the inheritance of Abraham,
[00:21:04] the beautiful wife that he loves, an answer to prayer with the pregnancies,
[00:21:09] he has not had a direct encounter with God as Abraham did.
[00:21:16] But Rebecca hears the word of the Lord.
[00:21:20] She hears it even before her husband does.
[00:21:24] I don't know what that means, but I like it.
[00:21:26] Verse 23, God speaks to Rebecca and says,
[00:21:30] two nations are in your womb. In other words, you're having twins.
[00:21:35] These twins will be two different nations,
[00:21:38] two peoples will be separated from your body.
[00:21:42] One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.
[00:21:47] It is because of this dilemma that Rebecca seeks the Lord
[00:21:51] and receives the direction and the answer on what is happening
[00:21:57] and what God's will is for the future.
[00:22:00] God uses dilemmas, those places of uneasiness that we just can't shake
[00:22:05] to bring us into His plans and purposes.
[00:22:09] Pamela Markey, who's a... she's head of our Bible College in Hungary,
[00:22:14] an amazing woman, she and her husband went to the Ukraine as missionaries
[00:22:19] with all their children, but when she first married her husband George,
[00:22:23] she was told that she would never ever have children,
[00:22:26] that it was just... it was not going to happen.
[00:22:30] And so because she was told it wasn't going to happen,
[00:22:32] she went ahead and went to med school. She was in medical school,
[00:22:36] she was also teaching, and she became pregnant by a miracle.
[00:22:42] And the Lord spoke to her and told her she was having a girl.
[00:22:46] Well, her husband George came into the room one night and he says,
[00:22:50] Pamela, I just need to tell you, the Lord showed me that you're having a boy.
[00:22:54] And she said, really? Well, we'll see who the true prophet is.
[00:22:58] Because God told me we're having a girl.
[00:23:00] He said, well, I know what the Lord said.
[00:23:02] And months later she had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.
[00:23:09] So according to the word of God to Rebecca, she had twins.
[00:23:14] But these were two distinct boys, two peoples, two nations,
[00:23:20] two absolutely different personalities.
[00:23:23] One who was always first and getting for himself.
[00:23:27] And one who hated coming in second.
[00:23:31] Two different pursuits, one who was restless and always seeking what he wanted
[00:23:38] outside the promises of God, outside his home.
[00:23:44] And one who took care of all the responsibilities of his parents' household,
[00:23:49] shepherding, farming, management, he stayed with the tents.
[00:23:53] One who doesn't care about the promises of God, ready to assimilate into Canaan.
[00:24:00] And the other desperately wanting the promises of God and identity
[00:24:05] with his grandfather Abraham and what God had promised.
[00:24:11] One who puts his physical needs above spiritual promises verses 29 through 34.
[00:24:17] And the other who capitalized on an opportunity to receive God's blessing.
[00:24:26] One of the biggest misconceptions people have about the will of God is that you can miss it.
[00:24:32] We look at signs and situations and think we are out of God's will.
[00:24:37] But it may be that we are right where he wants us to be.
[00:24:40] Often we see struggles and setbacks as missing God's will.
[00:24:43] But it is those very things that he uses to direct us into his perfect plan.
[00:24:49] He wants to use our lives to testify of his goodness, mercy and grace
[00:24:54] and will utilize all sorts of means to get us there.
[00:24:58] The only way we can miss the will of God is if we purposefully and decidedly rebel against it.
[00:25:04] We hope you have been blessed by today's Bible study.
[00:25:07] For more information about the Gracious Words Radio program
[00:25:10] and the teaching ministry of Cheryl Brodersen, please visit our website at graciouswords.com.
[00:25:16] Coming up next time on the Gracious Words program we'll continue our look at the will of God.
[00:25:21] As we continue our series, Our Great Creator in the Book of Genesis with Cheryl Brodersen,
[00:25:26] we do hope you make plans to join us.
[00:25:29] Again for more information please visit our website at graciouswords.com
[00:25:52] This program is sponsored by Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.
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