Acts 16:6-15
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
May 25, 2025
The God of infinite love and perfect wisdom yearns to be our Good Shepherd and direct our path.
Sometimes, however, He gives us no direction, most often because He has no preference between the options we’re seriously considering. The other day, as I debated whether to wear a blue shirt or a green one, God couldn’t care less which I chose – which doesn’t mean God never cares about how I dress. At times, God wants me to wear a tie to show someone respect, and at other times not wear one to show someone else respect.
There are times when there’s no guidance from God because we’re considering equally good options. A friend of mine was once simultaneously offered two jobs, with the same pay and same duties, one in Denver and the other in Albuquerque. He prayed to know which God wanted him to choose, but nothing came to him. He fretted over the decision and weighed the pro’s and con’s of each city’s weather, cultural offerings, recreational opportunities, etc. until he realized God could accomplish what He was most concerned about as well in one city as in the other: my friend’s sanctification, his serving in some city, his bearing a witness to Jesus, etc. My friend ended up choosing Albuquerque for the relatively inconsequential reason that it offered for him better Mexican food options. He felt that, because overall it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, God was fine with his making his “big” decision on as shallow a basis as that.
Though God often doesn’t have a preference about the options we’re seriously considering, God at many other times does have preference. By what means does He lead us then? Many have identified His five major means as 1) the Bible, 2) the Holy Spirit, 3) the counsel of the godly, 4) the use of our rational powers of thought, and 5) circumstances.
God’s guidance by the Bible is the foundational means, but it hardly needs elaboration. The scriptures give us the general principles in light of which we make the million specific decisions life requires us to make. For example, the Bible says, “Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” That one verse rules out a whole host of choices we might make and gives us a standard by which to evaluate all the options worthy of our consideration. But that one verse doesn’t specify the particular ways in which a particular individual or church should glorify God at a particular time. We need more guidance than what the Bible gives to determine, for example, what kind of family we are to have or what kind of volunteer service we are to perform.
So, in addition to meditating on God’s word in scripture, we need to engage in prayerful listening for God’s word from the Holy Spirit. John Piper tells of a teacher of his at Wheaton College in Illinois who said that, while shaving in his bathroom in Boston, he heard an audible voice tell him, with such command he knew it was God, “leave Boston and go to Wheaton!”
Piper doesn’t doubt the reality of that teacher’s experience. Yet, though Piper walks with God and is spiritually sensitive, Piper admits he’s never heard God’s voice audibly or seen a vision of God leading him at a fork in the road. But Piper feels sure that the Spirit has from time to time planted in his mind ideas, fragrant with heaven’s aroma, that indicate God’s will.
Of course, we can put words in God’s mouth and of course we can mistake our wishes for God’s will. So, if we are wise, we seek objective confirmation of our subjective impression of God’s will, by running our impression past godly, praying people who know God and know us. This is to avail of the third means for gaining God’s guidance. We listen to the body of Christ (that is, the church) as expressed through its trustworthy saints.
God directs our path by means of the Bible, the Spirit and the body of Christ. Fourth, God directs it by means of our using our heads and figuring out God’s mind on a matter. God’s will always makes sense in light of what we already know is His will. God’s newly revealed will is always reasonable in the sense that it aligns with God’s previously revealed will.
Peter had recently graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree. Paul was surprised when he ran into him as he stood behind a MacDonald’s taking orders for Big Macs and Happy Meals. The two later met over coffee, and Paul had to ask him what he was doing working at MacDonald’s, something to which Ivy League graduates don’t typically aspire. Peter simply replied that he’d failed to land a job after months of trying and that he had bills to pay. “So,” he said with a shrug and a smile, “this is where I’ve ended up – at least for now.” Paul replied, “Sorry to hear that. It must be hard,” to which Peter responded, “I am not sorry. God has me here for a purpose. This place is giving me awesome opportunities to share about Jesus.” Peter had figured out that the interruption of the plans he’d devised was God’s will, and a gracious gift by which God would develop his character and train him for his ultimate purpose, whatever else he did: glorify God and bear witness to Jesus. Peter told Paul about how he was working with a Buddhist from Sri Lanka, a Muslim from Lebanon and a Hindu from India, and serving a United Nations of people. Peter said, “I get to be a global missionary while asking, ‘Would you like fries with that?’” Because Peter had come to grasp something of God’s priorities and His methods of fulfilling them in his life, Peter recognized God’s will when it showed up in his circumstances, the fifth means of God’s guidance.
The Apostle Paul allowed God to direct his path by all five means. With today’s scripture, we pick up the story of his second missionary journey. Convinced of his purpose by scripture, the Spirit and the commission given him by the mother church in Jerusalem, Paul sought to bring the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. Acts 16 describes his moving westward through what we now call Turkey with the intention of reaching Ephesus, then the dominant city of that part of the world. But the Holy Spirit thwarted Paul’s plans and turned him northward – first by “forbidding” him from continuing on to speak the work in Asia (meaning here, not the continent, but a certain Roman province) and then by “not allowing” him to following the itinerary he’d designed but forcing him to turn north to enter Troas, that major port city on the far edge of the Asian continent. There the Spirit gave a Paul a night vision of a man from the Greek province of Macedonia, imploring him to come to Europe. Paul immediately recognized this as God’s call, and he took the next boat to Europe. Within a week there, for the first time on European soil, some folks chose to follow Jesus.
When God has a strong preference for the course of our life, He will faithfully direct our path by His word, His Spirit, the counsel of the godly, our rational thinking and our circumstances. All He needs from us is that we trust Him and seek to know and do His will.
Write a comment: