Biblical counseling and it is a great joy to be able to continue our study of God's Word. Thank you so much for your faithfulness and for your dedicated study to the Word of God as we've been working our way through these wonderful topics as outlined by the ACBC Theology exams.

I trust that this study has been a blessing to you and it's been a blessing to me to be able to walk through these topics together. We had a wonderful encouragement this week to be able to certify one of the counselors who's been in training here at the Kindred Counseling Center.

Denise Lopez completed her phase three of ACBC certification this week and we rejoiced in that and gave God thanks and gave him glory for all that he had done in her life and just to see Denise walk through this process of writing these essays and working her way through the 50 hours of supervised counseling was a great joy and it is just a joy to be part of this ministry.

It's just a great privilege to be able to partner with many of you and to be part of the training up of biblical counselors who would be able to use God's Word in other people's lives and to be able to minister the truth of God's Word to people's hearts.

So thank you again for being part of this class and we are working our way toward the end of the 24 theology exam questions. We are on theology exam number 22 tonight and we are looking at the very important and very practical topic of the Holy Spirit and guidance.

How does the Holy Spirit guide or lead the believer in Christ as the believer walks through the practical issues of life? I do think that this topic is very important. I know I say that of every single topic in the theology exams, but this one is very important for the simple reason that all of us are seeking to make decisions about life.

All of us are working through life's issues and the question of how does the Holy Spirit lead and guide us as we make decisions and as we deal with the practical course of life is one that is practical for all of us and it's also something that many counselees come and ask for counsel on this issue.

So I pray that this will be a helpful hour for us as we work through this very important topic. So let me pray for us. Let's devote our time to the Lord and we'll dive into our study for tonight. Let me pray. Our Father, we thank you, Lord, tonight that you indeed have given us your Holy Spirit.

We thank you that your Spirit lives in us. We thank you that we have been baptized into the person and into the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for your Spirit's work in our lives, that your Spirit works to show us Christ and that through the Holy Spirit's teaching ministry, we come to understand the truths about Jesus Christ and we come to exalt Him and to love Him, and indeed your Spirit is doing a work in our lives to make us more like Christ, that He is bearing the sweet fruit of the Spirit in us, that our character would be conformed to Christ's likeness.

Father, we thank you for the Spirit's guiding and leading ministry. We pray that we might be able to understand this topic in a greater manner, greater fullness tonight as we look at your Word. We pray that you would help us to be teachable and to evaluate, Father, our own understanding of this issue in light of what your Word would teach to us, and so we just pray for each of our hearts that your Spirit would convict us and teach us and lead us, and we pray that you would be honored and glorified in our time together.

Thank you for each of my brothers and sisters here for their faithfulness, and I pray that they may be encouraged as we look at your Word tonight. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Well, we are looking at the issue tonight of the Holy Spirit and guidance or the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

If you're with us in our last session, we looked at the truth that we have been given the Holy Spirit as believers in Christ. The Holy Spirit lives in us. The Holy Spirit not only comes alongside of us, but the Holy Spirit dwells in us so that our bodies are literally temples of the Holy Spirit, and tonight we're looking at one of the specific ministries of the Holy Spirit, and that is what we might call the leading of the Holy Spirit or, as the theology exam states, the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Here we're looking at a topic that is immensely practical. We're looking at the issue of how does God lead the believer from point A to point B? How does the Holy Spirit guide the believer in Christ? And if you really think about it, you and I tend to use this language to describe our Christian lives.

You will often hear it said, you may even say to another believer in the church, something like the following, "God led me to this church, and I now love this church, and I serve at this church, and it was eight years ago that God led me to this church." You may even tell your testimony in a certain way by saying, "God led me to the school," or, "God led me to live in this city.

God led me to this job or this company." You may even hear pastors or missionaries say of their story that, "God led me to the mission field," or, "God led me into this ministry. God led me to seminary." These are common phrases and common statements that we often use as we describe our Christian lives, as we tell our story.

We use this language of, "God led me," or, "God guided me here." But what do we mean when we say that, "God led me to a certain place," or, "to a certain vocation," or, "God led me to marry my wife," or, "God led me to this school where I would have this opportunity to continue my education." What exactly do we mean by that language of leading or guiding?

How does the Holy Spirit lead or guide the believer as the believer makes certain decisions walking through the practical issues of life? So, really, we are dealing with the subject of the Holy Spirit's leadership or the Holy Spirit's guidance, but the broader subtopic under this issue of the Holy Spirit's leadership really is the subject of biblical decision making.

How does the Holy Spirit lead us or guide us as we make decisions about our life, as we make decisions about the course of our lives? And so, even though the essay topic deals with the issue of the Holy Spirit and guidance, much of the material that we're going to be looking at tonight can be categorized under the subtopic or heading of biblical decision making.

Decision making is what we do, and we do that anticipating that the Holy Spirit will lead us as we make decisions about our lives. And so, maybe I could put it this way in terms of practicality. As we look backwards on our lives, we say that God led me to the school, or God led me to this church, or God led me to this ministry.

We can say that in hindsight as we look at our lives from the perspective of the present looking into the past, but as we as believers are moving to the future from the present, we make decisions. We have to make decisions about the very same issues, about what job we should take, or what church we should attend.

We make decisions about should we date, or should we marry, or whom shall we marry. We make decisions about what car do I drive, or what car do I buy, or what home do I purchase, if I should purchase a home, or what investment should we make. We make decisions about what ministry should I engage in, or which location or setting should I serve in.

We make decisions moving forward, and then looking backwards from the vantage point of time, we can say God led me to this place, or to this vocation, or to this mission field, or to this ministry. So, we're really talking about the category of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but underneath that, we're looking at the subject of how do we make decisions, anticipating that the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us as we make those decisions about our lives.

Now, if we frame the topic in this way, I hope you will immediately see that this is an immensely practical topic for each of our lives, and it will have very immediate application to each of our lives, because the truth is that all of us are making decisions about our lives.

All of us are making minor decisions, such as where should I eat today, or what shall I eat tonight for dinner, or what outfit should I wear, or what time shall I wake up tomorrow. All of us are making minor decisions, small decisions as we walk through the course of our lives from Monday to Sunday, but then at the same time, many of us are in the midst of making major decisions, major life decisions, such as should I marry, whom shall I marry, where shall we live, should I move, should I stay, should I purchase a home, should I buy a car, should I continue to rent, where should I put my children for schooling, should I public school, private school, homeschool, should I see this doctor and pursue this course of medical treatment, or should I pursue another doctor and pursue an alternate course of medical treatment.

All of us are making decisions, but some of us, even tonight, are making major life decisions that are going to affect the course of our lives for years to come. And the question would be, how do we make these life decisions seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance, seeking the Holy Spirit's leadership?

How can we be sure that we are making these decisions under the guidance and the leadership of the Holy Spirit? Because I think all of you would agree that none of us just want to make these decisions on our own. None of us just want to make these major life decisions in our own wisdom, in our own strength, and have to work these things out in our own power.

We all want the Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us as we work through these very practical issues of life. And so this is a very, very practical subject. And I'm just going to steal my own thunder tonight and just give you the main point before we back up a little bit and talk through the importance of decision-making.

I just want to give you the main point and what I think ACBC wants you to write in this essay, at least the main point of what I've written in my essay, and it passed, so I'm assuming that this is what they want to hear. What really the crux of the issue when it comes to this subject is simply this.

Many people believe that the Holy Spirit will guide me and lead me as I seek His direction in these issues of where should I go to school or who should I marry or where should I live. Many people believe that we should be seeking an extra biblical revelation, some kind of direct word from the Lord, or even some kind of impression or personal experience that would confirm the Holy Spirit's leading.

Or to put it real bluntly, many people believe that what we should be seeking is what Pastor Dave Doyle here at Kindred calls the woo-woo, that in order for me to know what school I should go to or what job I should take or what ministry I should serve in, that I need to seek and I need to receive the woo-woo, some kind of spiritual zap, some kind of extra biblical revelation, some kind of direct word from the Lord, or at least some kind of impression or some kind of personal experience that would directly give me guidance in this area apart from the study and the application of the written Word of God.

And oftentimes, people explain their decisions in this way by saying I was led to a certain ministry and I felt the woo-woo, I felt the zap or whatever they would describe it to be, some kind of dramatic spiritual experience that directly confirmed that this was indeed the Holy Spirit's leading and guidance.

Other people would even say that I was led in a certain direction and I even saw or felt words that told me that this was indeed the right course of action to take. And so you'll hear some, maybe some men even say that, you know, I met my wife and when I first met her, you know, the Holy Spirit zapped me and I received the woo-woo, and that was probably just romantic feelings, or you could just probably just say you liked her, but some people would even say, you know, God just confirmed in my heart in a direct way that this was the one.

And while I'm sympathetic on a personal experiential level to some of those experiences, we need to discern what exactly the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and guidance. How does the Holy Spirit lead us? Does he lead us through extra-biblical revelations? Does he lead us through zapping us directly with certain experiences?

Does he lead us through mystical experiences or dreams or visions where we directly receive certain leadership or guidance from God? You will even hear some people say that God told me to take this job, or God told me to marry this woman, or God told me to go to this city, and we just want to evaluate that biblically and be discerning about what the Word of God teaches.

It really is my thesis tonight, and it's my main point tonight that I want to encourage you with, that the Holy Spirit guides us through his Word. The Holy Spirit guides us through his written Word, that the way that we receive the Holy Spirit's guidance or leadership as we make decisions about our lives and about our families is we study the Word of God, we understand the Word of God, and then we make application of the Word of God to the situations that are before us, and it is through the ministry of the written Word of God, not apart from the ministry of the Word of God, that we receive the Holy Spirit's leadership and guidance as we make these types of decisions about our lives.

Now, I understand that it's a lot more glamorous, and it's a lot more spectacular for me to tell you that God told me directly 24 years ago that I should marry my wife Mina, and that might get a lot more attention, and it might seem a little more spectacular than if I said that I studied the Scripture, and the Bible says that he who finds a good wife finds a good thing, and I studied the Scripture and learned that I should marry a believer.

You know, that was a biblical principle that I should most likely find a believer who is filled with the Holy Spirit, and as I apply these principles to the situation that was before me, which is that my wife was a godly woman who was teachable to the Word of God, and as I applied those principles to the situation, the Holy Spirit led me to pursue marriage with my wife.

Now, that may not sound as glamorous as saying, you know, I saw my wife, and then the Holy Spirit zapped me, and I knew all of a sudden that, you know, I should marry her, or I heard an audible voice that said, "Marry this woman." That might sound a little more dramatic or exciting, but the truth is that the Holy Spirit guides us as we study and apply His Word.

The Holy Spirit will lead us as we take the written Word that He has inspired, and as we study it, learn it, apply it, and then learn to discern life's issues according to what the Word of God would teach and apply the Word of God to the situations before us.

That is how the Holy Spirit leads and guides us. He leads us through His written Word, not apart from His written Word. Now, all of that is to say something very practical. If you and I are not spending time in God's Word, in the written Word of God, if we are not bathing our thoughts in the written Word of God, if we are not bathing our souls in the truth of God's Word, then the simple fact is this.

We will not be making good decisions about our lives. We will not be making good decisions about those very same issues that I talked about, of should I purchase this property, or should I rent here, or should I public school, private school, homeschool my children. Those are all decisions that are before us, and we will not be making very good decisions unless we are bathing our lives and our minds in the Word of God, because the one way that the Holy Spirit leads and guides us as we make those types of decisions is He leads us through His Word and not apart from His Word.

With that said, I've kind of given you the main point of tonight's teaching, but with that said, let me walk you through some of this material and lay some foundation and then see if some of this will make sense. This is a study that I think we could spend a number of hours looking at the subject of biblical decision making and the Holy Spirit and guidance, but we'll have to content ourselves with a one-hour introduction tonight, and I hope it'll whet your appetite for further study.

Let me read the question and then give you some resources. Theology exam number 22 is provide your understanding of how the Holy Spirit guides Christians, so just a simple answer here. If you state anything else other than the Holy Spirit guides Christians through His written Word, the 66 books of the Bible, then your answer is going to be wrong, and so ACBC does have a grading template of pass, and then there is not pass, and then there's a third category called fatal error.

My goal in this class has been to keep each of my students out of that category of fatal error. It would be, I'm not sure how ACBC would grade this, but I'm thinking it would probably be nearing the line of fatal error if you say anything else other than the Holy Spirit guides us through the Scriptures.

Holy Spirit guides us through our understanding of the written Word of God, but this exam is asking you to provide your understanding of how the Holy Spirit guides Christians. Now, you have there on the first page of your handout a number of good resources that I would encourage you to take advantage of under the category of biblical decision making.

We have John MacArthur's Found God's Will, which is an excellent little book that will help you sort out this whole idea of we need to find God's will. MacArthur's statement in that book is that God's will is not mysterious. It is not confusing. It does not so much need to be found.

The Scripture does not so much call us to find God's will as to obey God's will or to do God's will. So, he's addressing this whole idea of somehow you need to find God's will as if it is something that is mysterious or hidden, and it's just a really good read.

I would commend that to you. And then you have Gary Friesian's Decision Making and the Will of God. That is really a foundational work that is referenced in many other biblical counseling works. They seem to always go back to Gary Friesian, and Friesian really laid out this thesis that we need to make decisions as we apply the Word of God to the situations that we face, not look for an extra biblical woo-woo or spiritual zap that would instantly give us an answer to the options that are before us.

We need to do the hard work of studying God's Word and applying God's Word to our lives. You would think that wouldn't be controversial or confusing, but in our day, it is something that needs to be stated and restated. Then a recent published work is Kevin DeYoung's Just Do Something, a liberating approach to finding God's will.

As with everything Kevin DeYoung has written, this is a very readable, clear articulation of the issues that arise in decision making. One of the things that DeYoung writes in that book is the whole idea that many of us are really engaged in this whole, what we call paralysis of analysis, that there are so many options that are before us that in some cases we become passive because we overthink or we are paralyzed by all of the different pros and cons of the options that are before us.

And so he titles this work Just Do Something. What he means by that is not just do anything. What he means by that is within the will of God, within the moral prescriptions of God, you have freedom to move forward with your life and be confident that God is going to lead and guide you.

And so just a good encouraging work that I would encourage you to have on your bookshelf and be acquainted with. I have used that with that book in counseling just to help with counselees who are just very paralyzed in life's decisions, who don't seem to be moving forward with life and just to encourage them to move forward in life and to make the tough decisions that are before them.

And then two other works is Dave Swayze's Decisions, Decisions and then Jim Perry's Step by Step. I would also commend to you the three supplemental handouts that I sent to you via Dropbox. You have Stuart Scott's Biblical Decision-Making. You have Dave Doyle's Message from Kindred. He preached this in main service.

It's called Wisdom or the Woo-Woo, a Theology of Guidance. And the audio and the video for that sermon is also available on our Kindred Church website and also on YouTube. If you want one sermon that's just kind of clarify the issues regarding biblical decision-making, I would encourage you to get Dave Doyle's Wisdom or the Woo-Woo.

And then Jim Neuhauser's Knowing God's Will. Most of my material will be summarized from these other resources. And so I wanted to put those supplemental notes in your hands. So let's move to the next page. And with that said, let's look at the subject of the Holy Spirit and guidance.

And I'm going to skip some of this material that's on the top of your handout. You can read that on your own. But move to the observations in the middle of page 2. Just some observations about decision-making. And this is from counseling practice and also from observations of the wider church.

The first bullet point is that many believers do not know how to make good decisions. Many times you'll hear people say, "I made this decision because it felt right or it felt good." Some people will explain their decisions by, as I said, using the language of "God told me to" or "I just had a feeling." Some people tend to appeal to personal intuition.

"I just knew that this was right." But what we're looking for in the issue of decision-making is this idea of here are the scriptures or here are the verses that the Holy Spirit brought to bear upon my thinking as I considered the course that was before me. We want to help people take the Word of God and apply them to the situations that they face in life.

And so what we're looking for in an explanation of how a person makes a decision is the language of these are the scriptures or the verses that I was working through and seeking to apply as I chose this school or pursued this job or pursued this relationship and so forth and so on.

Another observation we would make is that many believers live in regret from past decisions. And you'll find this in counseling ministry, just this prominent theme of regret, regret over if I had only chosen a different career or if I had only made a different business decision, if I had only had different priorities when I raised my children, the theme of regret usually surrounding some decision that the believer was a part of.

And we want to be very sympathetic with that and show compassion. I have regrets over decisions that I've made in my life, in the past. I'm sure that all of us have decisions that we believe from this vantage point should have been made differently if we could only do it over.

And so we all wrestle with this issue of regret. But I hope you will find that as we look at the issue of God's sovereign will in relation to his moral will, that we can, even as we look back and see that some decisions should have been made differently, understand that all of that is part of the sovereign will of God for our lives, that God is working out for his glory.

And so we need to help people see that God is sovereign over their lives, that he uses even bad decisions as part of his perfect plan for their lives. A third bullet point would be that passivity and paralysis can result from an unbiblical view of guidance. This really is something that we do see in counseling ministry.

Dr. Stuart Scott was my advisor in seminary, as I mentioned, and Dr. Scott did his own doctoral work on the subject of biblical decision-making. And he uses the story of ordering a hamburger in Los Angeles as an illustration of the analysis of paralysis that can result by having too many options.

And I don't know which hamburger joint he went to. I actually would like to know. I'd like to visit this hamburger joint, but he says that he went to this hamburger place in Los Angeles and he was asked the following questions. Do you want turkey or beef? Do you want a third of a pound, two thirds of a pound, or full pound of meat?

Do you want cheese? And there were 10 different varieties of cheese to choose from. Do you want toppings? And on this particular hamburger, you could choose up to four toppings on your hamburger. And then there were 18 different choices of toppings that you could choose from. So four out of the 18, you can imagine the paralysis of analysis that happens as you look at this menu.

And then he says there were another 10 premium toppings. And if you get out of that one and finally decide which toppings you want on your hamburger, he says that the next question was, do you want sauce? And there were 18 different kinds of sauces. And finally, when you think you're done, you're finally going to get a hamburger, you have to make a decision on what kind of bun would you like all of this on.

And there was English muffin, honey wheat, and so forth, and so on. Now, as I said, I would actually like to go to this hamburger joint because you can make an entire evening of this hamburger. But Dr. Scott, looking at all of the options for eating a hamburger says, I developed the paralysis of analysis and I understand what he's saying there.

And that's an illustration that can be compared to life. Sometimes there's just so many options. There are just so many different ways to go that the believer becomes passive as he or she looks at all of these different options. And there can be fear and anxiety attached to that passivity.

What if I make a wrong choice? What if I ruin my life? What if I go down this road and it turns out to be not God's plan for my life? And there is this idea, this false theological idea that somehow God has this perfect plan for your life.

It's plan A, and it includes exactly the right school, exactly the right job, exactly the right spouse, exactly the right children. And your job, your responsibility as a believer is you have to find out what that plan A is. And some believers wrestle with this idea of what if I make a wrong decision and I miss out on plan A for my life and I go down the wrong path, I choose the wrong school, which leads me to the wrong spouse, which leads me to the wrong job, which leads me to the wrong plan for my life, and I end up on plan B instead of plan A, and I miss God's best for my life.

That's the sort of thinking that goes into this paralysis. You can imagine trying to make a choice on what school to go to, and you're just paralyzed because you're saying, "What if I miss the plan that God had for my life and make a wrong decision here?" And so you do find believers can be paralyzed when they come to certain decisions that they make.

And then a practical point on counseling ministry, that many counselees do come for counseling wanting to know what God's will is for their lives. So let me ask you as counselors in training, if a counselee were to come to you and say this, "I'm trying to find God's will for my career or for my schooling or for my job or for my dating relationship," how would you help that counselee find God's will?

And the purpose of writing this essay is we want to affirm and train counselors who, when sitting with a counselee asking that question, would not be trying to find the woo-woo, or they would not be counseling the believer, the counselee, to seek the woo-woo. But we want counselors who would be able to sit with a counselee and say, "Look, you're dealing with this very difficult issue, and you're trying to make a good decision on a very practical topic, and I want to help you apply the principles of God's word to your situation so that we can be assured that the Holy Spirit is leading you through His word as you consider the options that are before you." So we don't want counselors to say to counselees, "Seek the woo-woo," and we especially don't want counselors to say, "I will seek the woo-woo for you." You do see that in church life where some people will actually take it upon themselves to seek the woo-woo on behalf of someone else, that this person is trying to decide, you know, which person should I date?

And someone in the church says, "Well, I've received the confirmation from the Lord on your behalf that you should date this person or that person." And all of that is not really what we want our counselors to do. We want our counselors to sit with other people and open their Bibles and take the principles of God's word and apply them to the situation, recognize that the word of God does not directly, specifically address every situation in life.

The word of God does not tell me to buy a Honda instead of a Mazda. The word of God does not tell me directly to homeschool or to private school or to public school, but we want counselors to sit with our counselees, open the Bible, and bring out general principles that can be applied to the situation, and then entrust that the Holy Spirit will use the word to guide that believer as that believer makes decisions in life.

So this is a very practical counseling issue that you will want to be equipped for as you enter into counseling ministry. So let me move to the foundations of this study, and I'm going to move fairly briefly here, but I hope you get the overview of what we are teaching on this subject.

Some key definitions, and the first definition is God's sovereign will, God's sovereign will, and we're going to distinguish this from God's moral will. God's sovereign will is God's universe embracing plan, which always comes to pass, and you can circle that word always. God's sovereign will always comes to pass and embraces every event in all of human history.

A number of passages on your handout. I'm going to jump down to Ephesians 1 verse 11, which says that in him, that is in Christ, we have obtained inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him. That word purpose means a plan or a program. It refers to the purpose that God determined in eternity past, which embraces all of human history and the history of the universe.

It is God's great and grand purpose, his program for the created order. Paul says we have been predestined according to that purpose of him who works. The Greek word is energeo, who energetically actively works all things according to the counsel of his will. So this idea of God's purpose determined in eternity past, which God is working out through the course of human history, refers to his universe embracing plan, which always comes to pass.

Nothing will thwart God's purpose being fulfilled in the course of human history and in our lives. This is what we refer to as God's sovereign will. God's sovereign will. Some theologians refer to this as God's decretive will, referring to the decree that God has made in eternity past. This is the confidence of the believer.

Romans 8 verse 28 says we know that for those who love God, all things, all of human history, every circumstance in our lives, every trial, every heartache, every detail of our lives, all things, Paul says, work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose. So the idea here is that this universe embracing plan, which always comes to pass because it is rooted in God's eternal decree in eternity past, always works for the good of those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose.

As believers, we rejoice in God's sovereign will. Now just some observations about God's sovereign will. Bullet point is that God's sovereign will includes violations of his moral will. God's sovereign will includes violations of his moral will. God's moral will is essentially his commandments, the principles that God has revealed in his word.

You can disobey God's commandments and be outside of his moral will, but you will never be outside of God's sovereign will. So let me give you an illustration of this, and hopefully this will make sense. I think you can kind of picture this as God's sovereign will being a larger circle or a larger oval, and then God's moral will being inside of God's sovereign will.

God's moral will refers to his commandments or his precepts, what God has commanded for us to obey as a reflection of his holiness and righteousness. And God's sovereign will, you recognize, is God's universe embracing plan, which includes every event in all of human history. And so you can be outside of God's moral will.

You can disobey God. You can disobey his commandments. But even when you disobey God, you will never be outside of God's sovereign will. So maybe we could point it this way, that you can sin. Being outside of God's moral will is simply sin. But even when you sin, you are still inside of God's sovereign will.

Disobeying God's commandments does not mean that you have thwarted God's plan. It does not mean that you in any way have made his plan unworkable, that God is saying in heaven, "Oh no, Dan sinned, and so I don't know what to do. I don't know how I'm going to work out my sovereign will that I determined in eternity past." It does not thwart God's sovereign will or his plan from taking place.

Even when you and I are outside of God's moral will, God's sovereign will is still on track and being worked out in human history. An illustration of this would be in the life of Joseph, and I'll place this on the screen here. Genesis 50 verse 20, "Joseph said to his brothers, 'As for you, you meant evil against me.'" So let me ask you a question.

Was Joseph's brothers outside or inside of God's moral will when they threw Joseph into a pit and sold him into slavery? I think you would all agree that Joseph's brothers were outside of his moral will. They disobeyed God. They committed evil against Joseph, and so in that way they sinned.

They were not inside God's moral will, and yet Joseph says that even though you were outside of God's moral will, you meant evil against me. You were still inside of God's sovereign will, he says, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

And so even as Joseph's brothers committed evil against Joseph, God was sovereignly working through their evil to bring about good for many people. Now that is the mystery of God's sovereign will. God is not the author of sin. God does not tempt anyone to sin, and yet somehow in the mystery of his providence, God sovereignly uses even the evil and the sin of man in order to accomplish his good and holy purposes, which Romans 8 28 emphasizes to us are always good for God's people.

We see that in the life of Joseph. They committed evil, and yet God sovereignly worked that out for good. We see this also in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 2 verse 23, Peter declares to the Jews, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified.

So you sinned, you committed great evil. You were not within the moral will of God when you nailed Jesus to the cross. And yet in the mystery of God's providence, God sovereignly used the evil of the Jews in order to accomplish his good and holy purposes, which were to bring about salvation for sinners and grace upon grace to all the nations.

Amazing just how God's sovereign will includes violations of his moral will. God does not sin. God does not tempt anyone to sin. God cannot be charged with sin. And yet God sovereignly uses even the sin of man to accomplish his good and holy purposes. Let me move quickly to the next observation is God's sovereign will is never frustrated.

God is on his throne. God is not wringing his hands in heaven, wondering how your life and my life are going to turn out. God is never surprised. God is never worried. God has made a plan and everything is exactly on track for his plan to be completed. And it always works out for the good of his people.

Never frustrated. Romans 9 verse 19, "For who can resist his will?" The answer is no one, nothing. That is why Paul can say in Romans 8 that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ, because God's sovereign will can never be thwarted. So his sovereign will is never frustrated.

A good word for those of us who may be worried about the political scene or worried about human government. God knows what to do with evil rulers. God knows what to do with transitions in government. He's not worried. He is sovereignly working all things out for our good and for his glory.

And then number three, I think to the point of the counseling issue, is that you are never outside of God's sovereign will. There is no plan B for your life. So this whole idea of God has a plan for your life. He has a plan A. Your job is to find it.

So the burden is on you to know what the entire plan is. And if you make a wrong decision, then you're going to mess up his plan for your life. Simply does not square with the teaching of scripture. There is no plan B. It really is a powerful thought, and one I want you to think about tonight, that your life and my life, exactly the way that it is today, with each trial, each situation, each circumstance, each relationship, is exactly what God has sovereignly ordained it to be.

As you look at your past and you look at the course of your life, you see the unfolding of God's sovereign plan for your life. There is no plan B. The sovereign purpose of God is being completed in our day and in our time. That does not lead us to a type of determinism which says, "Well, God is going to accomplish his plan, so we might as well just not obey and not do anything." But it does give us the assurance that God has a plan and he is working it out for our good and for his glory.

Even when you made that wrong decision, someone might say to me, a husband might say to me, "I made a wrong decision in marrying my wife. She was an unbeliever or she was an immature Christian, and I had spiritual leaders in my life who told me that I shouldn't marry her, and I did.

I went against counsel, and I married her, and now our marriage is difficult, and it's a very heartbreaking situation." And that husband might look back and say, "This was not God's plan for my life. This was not the woman that I should have married." And in the sense of, your choice to marry this woman may not have been consistent with God's moral will for your life.

But at the same time, I can say to that husband, it was part of God's sovereign will for your life. And even the wrong decisions, even the misguided decisions are part of God's sovereign will for your life that he's working out for our good and for his glory. And so, this understanding of God's sovereign will really addresses that issue.

Moving quickly to God's moral will, as I stated already, if you look at the next page there, I think that's page four, God's moral will is found in the commands and principles which God has revealed in the written scriptures. Deuteronomy 29 verse 19 says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Meaning that we will not always understand God's sovereign will for our lives, but we have been given God's moral will.

The moral will of God has been given to us. We understand it. It's not mysterious. It's not confusing. God's moral will is clear to us. And so, if you move to this whole idea of God's moral will, we're looking at the commands and principles which God has revealed in the written scriptures.

Now, let me explain this as we look at the moral will of God. I need to move you to a very important concept here. If you look at this diagram, and you're going to get tired of looking at this diagram, but I do want to show you how decision-making fits into this framework and this theological understanding that helps us understand the decision-making process.

We do see that God's moral will addresses every aspect of life. God doesn't exactly tell us what to do in each and every given situation, yet God's word does apply to every given situation in life. For example, God does not tell me in his word, "Go home and help your wife do the dishes." That's not a verse that you're going to find in scripture.

But what God does say in his word is, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church." And so, if I love my wife as Christ loves the church, then surely I will be willing to help her do the dishes. The idea here is that God does not specifically tell me what to do, but God's word does address every aspect of life.

As Stuart Scott has well said, sometimes God's word is a roadmap specific, sometimes it is a compass general. The emphasis in scripture is on doing God's will, not finding God's will. As I stated previously, Matthew 12, Ephesians 5, 1st Colossians chapter 1, all of those passages speak of doing God's will, understanding God's will, but you won't find in scripture this idea of God's will is this hidden, mysterious, confusing concept that somehow we need to strive to uncover.

God's will for us is clear because his moral will is found in the commands of scripture. And then here is the very important concept that I need to emphasize. Number three is the principle of freedom where there is no command, God gives us freedom. So, within the moral will of God, there is freedom.

There is freedom to make choices regarding the specific issues of life while staying in the moral will of God. Now, let me give you a really silly example, but it's actually a very practical example that I face on a regular basis. The question is this, the great theological question is this, should I eat at Burger King or should I eat at McDonald's?

Now, some of you may have some biblical verses and arguments why you should eat at Burger King or McDonald's. I was on the East Coast last week and my host was asking this very important question after we got off the plane late at night, what kind of hamburger do you want?

And I had my wife and my daughters in the car and we had to make a decision. What kind of hamburger do you want? He said, there's Burger King, there's McDonald's, and there was this place on the East Coast called Checkers, which had the tagline, it's crazy good. And so, we couldn't help that.

I don't know if that's the woo-woo or that's, I'm not going to say that's the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We just saw the tagline, it's crazy good. And so, we said to my host, we want Checkers. But here's the decision, should I eat at Burger King or McDonald's?

Now, would you just agree with that statement that within that question of what burger do you want or what hamburger should we eat, that there is freedom? You can eat McDonald's to the glory of God, you can eat Burger King to the glory of God, and you can eat Checkers to the glory of God, which we did that night on the East Coast.

And I will say that it was crazy good, or maybe we were just hungry because we hadn't eaten all day after flying all day to the East Coast. But there is freedom. There is no Bible verse that says thou shalt eat McDonald's, thou shalt eat Burger King, thou shalt eat Checkers.

You can stay within the moral will of God as long as you eat with thanksgiving, as long as you eat to the glory of God. You can stay within the moral will of God and eat Burger King or McDonald's or Checkers. And you get the point. Within the moral will of God, there is freedom to make specific decisions.

Should I homeschool my children or public school my children? As a parent who's done both, I would say there is freedom. There is no command that says you shall homeschool your children. There is no command that says you shall public school your children. You can do both and stay within the moral will of God.

Should you buy a Honda or should you buy a Mazda? Once again, you have freedom to make specific choices as long as you are submitting to the general principles of scripture. And there are many passages there that speak to this issue. Genesis 2, verse 16, "The Lord God commanded the man saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.'" And people say God is so restrictive because he said, "You shall not eat of this particular tree." But did you get the other statement that God said to Adam and Eve?

He said, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden." So as long as you are obeying this command not to eat of one particular tree, you have freedom. You can eat of every tree of the garden. Now that's the principle of freedom. You can stay within the moral will of God and you can eat of many different kinds of trees.

There is freedom. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 23, "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up." Paul means there that all things are lawful, which have not been declared unlawful by the word of God. Paul acknowledges that there is this realm of Christian freedom, and yet he says that we are to use our freedom to build other believers up.

You don't just say, "Well, I'm free, so I'm going to do whatever I want," Paul says. Even though you understand that all things are lawful, you also have to understand that not all things build up. And so use your freedom to serve one another and to build one another up.

And that is a very important concept. Okay, so with that concept in place, and you can review the notes and also look at this diagram. If you understand the conceptual idea of this diagram that you have God's sovereign will, which you're always in, you have God's moral will, which is the commands of God in scripture.

And then within the moral will of God, you have freedom to make certain specific choices and decisions in life. The question is this, "How does the Holy Spirit guide believers in Christ?" And I'm going to make a couple points here and draw this to a close. As I said, the thesis of this teaching is that the Holy Spirit guides believers through His all-sufficient word.

The Holy Spirit guides believers through, not apart from, His written word. In other words, you and I will experience the guiding ministry of the Holy Spirit as we study and apply the principles of His word to the specific issues we face in everyday life. The question is, "Should I eat at McDonald's or should I eat at Burger King?" And in general, you have the principle of freedom, except I'm married to a wife who happens to not like Burger King as much as she likes McDonald's, even though I like Burger King.

She has a preference toward McDonald's. I also have a daughter who really happens to love the Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's. So when I'm faced in that situation with a car, with my wife and my daughter in my car, I have to apply scripture. And I have to apply the biblical principles of love and servanthood and preferring one another above myself in Philippians 2 verses 1-4, considering the issues of others more important than yourself.

And those principles of scripture will guide me to make a decision, most likely in that setting, to drive my daughter and my wife to McDonald's and not to Burger King. That's a simple example, but I hope you will see that biblical principles do apply even to the smaller decisions that we make.

This is not the Holy Spirit giving me a woo-woo. This is not the Holy Spirit giving me a direct zap. This is not me waking up in a night saying, "I saw the golden arches, and I know that it's God's will for me to take my daughter to McDonald's and not Burger King." This is me thinking through the biblical principles.

Serve one another. Prefer one another. If my wife and my daughter like a certain preference, then I should seek to serve them. It is as I consider what the Word of God teaches that the Holy Spirit guides me to make decisions in life. And I'm just taking scripture and applying God's Word to the decisions that I face.

And I'm sure most of you would be much more impressed if I told you that I received direct word from the Lord, that I should eat this hamburger instead of the other, but that never happens to me. We don't need any additional words or revelations apart from scripture. We need to apply what God has already given.

So what I've given you on your handout there, and I would encourage you to get Stuart Scott's material on this, are just some inadequate means of obtaining guidance, just ways that people tend to seek guidance from the Holy Spirit apart from simply reading, studying, and applying the written Word of God.

And that can be an entire session on its own, but I want to just put that in your hands and ask you to think through that. Just very briefly, when people talk about, "Well, the Holy Spirit led me or guided me," I would just note here that the two clear examples of the Holy Spirit's leading in scripture, just to bring some balance to understanding, is Romans 8, which talks about the Holy Spirit leading us to see our adopted status as sons of God in Christ, and Galatians chapter 5, which talks about the Holy Spirit leading us to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

And so a person who is saying that the Spirit is leading me ought to be able to say that I am praying to the Father as a child comes to a father whom he knows, loves the child, and embraces the child, and the Holy Spirit is leading me to greater sanctification.

So that's the basic principle. The Holy Spirit guides believers through his Word. So I know you might be saying then, "What about that one little circle called freedom? What about those decisions that we make that are really within the confines of Christian freedom, and yet we do need to make those decisions?

We do need to decide what school should I go to, or what person should I date, or who should I marry?" And there may be, you know, three different schools that are all within the moral will of God, and there's freedom, and yet you and I know that can be agonizing to decide those types of issues.

And with teenagers in my home who are making those types of life decisions, I know that that can be very agonizing. Which school should I go to? All of them are lawful in the sense that they're permissible by the Lord, and yet still that is an agonizing decision. And so in that realm, letter B, the Holy Spirit gives wisdom to apply God's Word to life situation.

He is called the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding. The proto-deacons in Acts 6, verse 3, were full of the Spirit and of wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to recognize what is spiritually profitable in a given situation, and sometimes we come alongside counselees and we say, "You have freedom to choose this job or that job," and yet I'm going to pray along with the prayer in James 1, verse 5, I'm going to pray that God gives you wisdom to apply these principles of God's Word to your situation so that you would make the most spiritually advantageous decision out of all the possible options, even though all of the options are within God's moral will.

And so some decisions have multiple options, and all of those options are within God's moral will. So wisdom is the ability to apply the truth of God's Word to a given situation. Now, my last point is this, and as you can see, I'm rushing here a little bit because there's so much we could say on this topic, but really I need to draw this to a close.

The Holy Spirit leads us as we study and apply the Word of God. The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom to apply God's Word to life situations and within the realm of freedom to make decisions that would be most spiritually advantageous in a given situation. And then the last thing we would say is that the Holy Spirit, at the bottom of page 6 of your handout, gives us courage to make hard decisions.

So I think the final thing that I would say on this topic is that understanding this whole topic of guidance and biblical decision making, someone might say, "Wow, I can't make a decision until I grow more in the Lord," or, "I can't make a decision until I've read Gary Friesian's book," or, "I can't make a decision until I've listened to Dave Doyle and Jim Uheiser on this topic.

And before I get a PhD in decision making, I can't make decisions." And I would say that this topic and this session hopefully will equip you to see that you can make decisions and you should make decisions. And the Holy Spirit will give you His wisdom that you will make even the hard decisions, that you will search God's Word, that you will apply to the best of your ability, the principles of Scripture, to the decision that faces you, that you will obtain wise counsel.

And hopefully this counsel will point you to the Word and not give you counsel that is apart from God's Word. And you will pray for wisdom, and then you will make decisions. That is to say that God guides us as we move forward in life, as we make decisions, and as we trust that God will sovereignly work through our decisions to accomplish His good and perfect plan.

Even if our decisions are flawed or if they are not perfect, we will still trust that God will use even those decisions to accomplish His good and holy purposes. And the Holy Spirit gives us courage to make those hard decisions. After everything is said and done, after we've applied Scripture, and if we prayed, and as we sought the best ability to seek counsel, we will tell our counselees, "Make a decision and then entrust your life to God.

Make a decision and trust that God will even steer you as you make another decision after that decision. And then you will look back on your life and you will be able to say, 'God led me and that the Holy Spirit led me as I studied and applied His precious Word.'" So I trust this session was an encouragement to you.

Once again, pick up Stuart Scott's handout on this and Jim Neuheiser's teaching on this. If you need a teaching that is one hour that's going to encapsulate a lot of this, get Dave Doyle's message off the Kindred website. And I trust that you will both be guided and led by the Holy Spirit in the practical areas of life and that you will be equipped to help others to seek that same guidance as well.

Let me pray for us and we'll close our session for tonight. Father, we just thank you so much for your precious Word. And we thank you that the Holy Spirit leads us as we study and apply the Word of God. We thank you that we don't need any additional words outside of Scripture.

You've given to us everything that we need for life and godliness. And so help us to be guided by the Holy Spirit as we carefully apply the principles of Scripture to the situations that are before us. And we pray that as we make those tough decisions, that we would trust that you would sovereignly work in our lives.