(upbeat music) - We now have over 1,200 sermons by John Piper in the Desiring God sermon archive, but none of them are more popular than one sermon that stands above all the others in page views. It's simply titled, "What is the Will of God "and How Do We Know It?" A sermon he preached on August 22nd, 2004.

In it, he answers the question, "What is the single most important key "to knowing God's will in my life? "Like, how do I obey him? "In any given situation, but also, "who does he want me to marry? "What car should I buy? "What career path should I choose? "Where should I go to school?" Pastor John explains how to know God's will in three stages from Romans 12, verses one and two.

- If I'm arguing that discern the will of God in verse two means discern the will of command, discern your duty, how does that look? Three stages. Number one, God's will of command is revealed finally and decisively only in the Bible. Finally and decisively, very important words. God's will of command is revealed with final and decisive authority only in the Bible, and we must have a renewed mind in order to see it, because if you go to the Bible without having a renewed mind, you will find a way to distort and evade self-denial, love, purity, the command that Jesus be supremely satisfying.

We must have the Holy Spirit illumining, transforming. The Holy Spirit brings us Christ-exalting truth, and from inside, he works truth-embracing humility. That's just gotta happen. When you go to the Bible, you're gonna blow off all kinds of things or twist them so that they fit your own self-exalting passions.

So step one is the Bible is God's revealed will, the will of command, and it's the only place where it is expressed with final and decisive authority. Here's a text to support that claim, 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in godliness, in order that the man of God might be competent, equipped for every good work, not some.

Like some good works, you gotta get messages in order to do. I won't be able to figure out the will of God here unless I get a message. This text says the scriptures are inspired to make the Christian competent, equipped for every good work. Second stage, first one is Bible.

We need renewed mind to understand it and apply it. The second stage is the application of biblical truth to new situations that are not explicitly addressed in the Bible, and there are, of course, millions of them. The Bible does not tell you which person to marry or whether to marry.

The Bible does not tell you which car to drive or buy, rent. The Bible doesn't tell you whether to buy a home or not, or which home to buy. The Bible doesn't tell you where or if to take a vacation. The Bible doesn't tell you which cell phone plan to buy.

The Bible doesn't tell you which brand of orange juice to drink. There are 10,000 decisions you must make that are not explicitly addressed in the Bible. So what do you do? My answer is you must have a renewed mind. That's what the text says. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove how to eat, how to drink, cars to drive, houses to live in, missions to go on, lifestyles to choose from, friendships to cultivate, conversations to have and not to have.

10,000 decisions not written in the Bible, and yet informed by all the teaching of the Bible into this new mind so that you think with the mind of Christ and assess things the way Christ would assess them so that the decisions that are made really are flowing from the revealed will of God in the Bible as it transforms your mind.

Lastly, 95% of your life is unpremeditated. I'm just picking 95% out of the blue. You pick a number. 95% of your life is unpremeditated. Thoughts, attitudes, actions are spontaneous. They just are spillover, and the Bible is keenly aware of this and addresses it like this. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The good person out of his good treasure, substitute the person with the renewed mind. The good person, the person with the renewed mind, out of the good treasure brings forth good. And the evil person out of the evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word, the ones you didn't think about at all, namely, most of them.

It's got to be that way. You cannot stop before every sentence and ponder the use of your verbs and nouns. It's impossible to communicate that way. You must just keep talking. And if you were standing out here, you'd say, "Where is all that coming from? Because I'm not thinking in detail about which sentence to use and which adjective to use and what tone of voice to use and whether these gestures should keep going." And just your life is spillover.

95% of the time, your life is spillover. And you may ask, "Well, why are you calling that part of the will of command? Because it sounds like, you know, will of command would be, I'm hearing a command, I'm thinking about it, and then I'm doing it. And I'm calling it the will of command because you get in the Bible commands, 'Don't be angry, don't be prideful, don't covet, don't be anxious, don't be jealous, don't envy.' And you don't think of any of those.

Nobody decides to be prideful. Now, see, I'm humble, but I really like to be prideful. So now I will make a decision to become prideful. Or I'm not feeling any envy right now, but I see somebody has something, I think I'll start feeling envy. Or I don't have enough and covetousness would be one way to respond.

I think I'll respond with covetousness." Nobody lives like that. Those things happen to you and you are guilty because they're coming out of your heart. I don't, by and large, live my life by lists. You try to live your life by lists, either the list will be ridiculous in its shortness compared to the 10,000 things you do each day, or it will be so long you die.

There's only one way to live the Christian life. Don't be conformed, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. It's our only hope. Life is too spontaneous. You just can't live it by lists. You can't live it even by the Ten Commandments because 95% of the time you're doing stuff without reflecting on whether it breaks any commandment.

You're just doing stuff. My biggest challenge is, "Piper, be new. Be new. Just get at the core of my being. If there's any stuff, junk, pride left down there that's just causing the stuff to come out unbidden and unplanned, get at me down there, Lord." That's the only hope, isn't it?

So concluding exhortation, immerse yourself in God's Word. Saturate your mind with it. I don't know any other way. I'm 58. Two years ago, I said to the staff at a January meeting, "At age 56, I want to give my life to memorizing like I've never memorized before." I'll say that even stronger right now.

I'm into mega Bible memorization. I don't know any other way to saturate, transform, shape, alter, bring my mind into conformity to the mind of Christ than by memorizing and meditating upon His Word. So I don't think you have a chance of a snowball in hell to be holy and avoid that kind of language if you don't meditate on the Word of God a lot.

So immerse yourself in the Bible. Get serious about a renewed mind. That is valuable counsel. Once again, this excerpt comes from the most popular sermon we have in the DG Sermon Archive. It's titled, "What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?" Which was preached on August 22, 2004.

You can find it on our website at DesiringGod.org. Also be sure to listen to episode number 181 in this podcast series. Episode 181 was titled, "How Do We Know God's Will?" Well tomorrow we hear from a wife who caught her husband checking out a young, attractive woman at the grocery store.

The wife is, of course, heartbroken. But should she say anything to him? We'll hear Pastor John respond to that tomorrow. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the daily Ask Pastor John podcast. 1 Desiring God's Will 2. What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?

3. What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It? 4. What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?