Holy Spirit Knows God’s Will

0:01 Once again, I'd like to welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Today's topic is why the Holy Spirit knows God's will, and how does he know it, and how can we know God's will, and how does the Holy Spirit reveal to us the will of God? We're going to look at what is the benefit of yielding to God's will, and is God's will easy to discover? So, we're going to cover all that, but first, let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness. I pray blessing upon this podcast. I ask the Holy Spirit to come in now, take control and do what only he can do, lead, guide, direct and anoint. And I pray that the Holy Spirit would help those who are listening in today, for those who are wondering about God's will and wondering how the Holy Spirit interacts with God's will in our life. Whatever their questions or concerns might be, I pray that you would bless them and that they would receive exactly what you have for them, what you desire for them. Thank you Lord again for this opportunity. I'll be careful to give you praise for all great things that take place. Give you all honor and glory. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Let me just start off with a question. Have you ever wondered what God's will is for something in your life? Maybe something specific, you know, just as a decision you're trying to make or maybe trying to decide to buy or sell a house or a car or job change or maybe someone that you're dating or someone you're really serious about and wondering is this going to lead to marriage? Whatever it is, you want to know God's will, but so you've got to question that's very common we all face these

1:32 things and all of us have wondered about that we've all had a time in our life where we've wondered and just said Lord is this the way to go should I do this should I do that should I do this first and do that second whatever it might be well we don't have to wonder about that we can understand through the Word of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit exactly how we should deal with God's will and to get to understand that we've got to understand how the Holy Spirit knows God's will you see Remember, we're Christians, and as fathers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living and dwelling in us. And because of that, we've got an advantage, obviously, on those people who've not given their life to Christ. We have the advantage of the Holy Spirit living and dwelling in us, so we need to seek Him and ask for His direction. Now, even the great Apostle Paul had questions about knowing and doing God's will.

2:21 You know, there's a scripture that he talked about, and I've used it before in podcasts. I'm going to just use it again. He basically is saying this. He's saying, you know, there's times that I'm doing things that I know I shouldn't do. I'm doing the things that I don't want to do. And even though I know I shouldn't do them, even while I'm doing them, I know it's wrong. But he says, I still do them anyway. Why is it? Why does that happen? So Paul was wondering, how can he do God's will? How can he have the directions that he needed? And he ran to the Holy Spirit for guidance, for direction, for wisdom, for knowledge. You know, another one of my scriptures, one of my favorite scriptures dealing with this issue of how the Holy Spirit knows God's will is found in Romans chapter seven in verses nine, 19 I think through 25 in the New Living Translation.

3:06 Now this is a longer scripture than I usually read, but it's vital to this podcast. Therefore, let's read Romans chapter seven verses 19 through 25 in the New Living Translation. And of course, this is the scripture that I talked about a second ago, but we gotta read a little bit more than just what I talked about. Here's Paul talking once again in Romans chapter seven. verse 19. I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. Verse 20. But if I do what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. Well, you know, we should stop there for a second. You know, when we're under attack and we're doing something we shouldn't do, or we have thoughts we shouldn't have, or we're taking actions we shouldn't take, we should immediately be ready to understand.

3:51 That's what Paul's saying here. He knows where it's coming from. It's sin. It's the Holy Spirit wanting to bring into our life and wants to increase the sin maybe that we're still struggling with in our life. And so we immediately identify that. So therefore we can rebuke the devil and say, I take authority over you in Jesus' name. I rebuke that thought. I'm not allow that to come back into my mind. And that's what Paul understood that he knew to take authority over the sin that tried to get into, you know, in our lives. In verse 21, he says this, I have discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. Verse 22, I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war in my mind. This power makes me a slave to sin that is still within me. Verse 24, oh, what a miserable person I am. Now, it's hard to imagine Paul saying that, but he was a regular person, quite frankly, just like you and I, who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death. Verse 25, thank God. Here we go, here we go. Here's the answer. is in. Christ Jesus, our Lord. So you see how it is. In my mind, I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin. You know, he goes on to talk about, in Romans chapter eight, about power of the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit's the one that has to lead us. And so he follows up with what I just read with eight chapter, let's see, Romans chapter eight, verse one. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong

5:22 to Christ Jesus. Now isn't that powerful? He talked about all of his challenges. He talked about all the things he was going through, like we all go through some of the difficult times that we have, and yet he jumps right back on his walk with God and says this. He says, so now there is no condemnation. He says, for those who belong to Jesus Christ, that means for those who are followers of Jesus Christ, he was just confirming to himself what he knew was to be the truth. He says, and because you belong to him, the power, listen to this, of the life -giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin. that leads to death. So that kind of wraps up that part of this podcast. It's so important to understand we all battle issues in our mind. There's a battle over our thoughts, a battle over what goes into our heart. And we've got to take authority over that in the name of Jesus and declare God's promises for every area of our life. And that's what Paul was saying. He said, oh, I've had these problems.

6:18 I'm fighting these problems. I'm going through these problems. He says, but I've got something going. You know, it's so wonderful that God's Word says, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Well, so that's an example of the Holy Spirit knowing God's will for us. Now how does this all tie into the Holy Spirit knowing God's will? Because the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is Jesus. Because they are all part of the triune Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Only one God. But in three direct personalities, three specific purposes for Christians. Now here are a couple of scriptural examples I think that will help us in understanding the Holy Spirit knows God's will. In 1st Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9 in the New Living Testament, listen to this. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. That's a powerful statement to understand that God has a will for us, a plan for us, a purpose for us, and in our life we've got to work towards what Paul was saying. I know there's no condemnation in me because Christ has taken that away when He gave His life for me and I became a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no longer any condemnation over my mind or my thoughts. And that opens us up to understand the will of God, to receive the will of God. And then 1 Corinthians 2 .9, Paul writes again, and he says, basically, no one's ever seen this, no one's ever heard it. But what God has prepared for those who love Him, He wants

7:49 us to operate here on earth in our plan, our purpose, and in His will. And the Holy Spirit is the only way that we can do that. We can't operate in God's will and not have a relationship with the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis. Look at another scripture here. that's wonderful. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 10 and 11 in the New Living Translation. But it was to us that revealed these things by His Spirit, for His Spirit searches out everything and shows us that God has deep secrets, or that God has deep secrets. What's important about that scripture is it's telling us that the word of God is going to reveal to us God's secrets, and God's secrets, to some people think it's God's will is one of those.

8:32 Well, it is of a secret to God until the Holy Spirit helps us to receive God's will and understand his will in our life and therefore he reveals the Holy Spirit helps reveal the deep things of God and the power of God that's to operate in followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me just digress for a second. This reading is just so wonderful. I'm kind of getting excited about it. I'm the energy that I believe the Lord has placed in me to help people understand how to understand their God's will for their life and God's promises for them and that even the deep secrets that he has for them, that I want to emphasize what Paul's teaching was. First we started off with Paul having problems. He was struggling, right? And then we understand that Paul is now directing us towards the Holy Spirit, understanding exactly how we can overcome these things. Then we read that Paul is telling us that no one can possibly understand what's going on except God can reveal those things to us.

9:25 And then we get into 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 10 and 11. And remember 10 was, but it was to us that God reveals these things by His Spirit, for His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets. But let's stay with us now. Verse 11, no one can know a person's thought except that person's own spirit. And no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit. Here we go. Here we go. That's how we know God's will, through the spirit. And we have received God's spirit, not in the world's spirit. So we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. We just continue to get more and more strength about understanding that God has a great plan. God has a purpose for us. has great things planned for us, and part of that is to operate in His will. See, as we operate in His will, then it'll open up the promises of God, the deep things that God has promised for us, if we operate in His will. Oh, help us, Lord, to understand how crucial it is to know God's will and then to operate in that will. Now, in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 12, it says, we receive the Holy Spirit. I just read that a second ago. We receive the Holy Spirit so we can know, we can know the wonderful things that God has freely given us. I want to repeat that scripture one more time just because it's so important to understand that, yes, we will know, especially to some people who might be listening and saying, I just cannot seem to get over the hump to understand what my purpose is in life and what God's will is for me in my life. And what's God's will is for

10:57 me in various things I'm involved with. Well, Paul's helping us with that. He's getting us to understand that we have received God's Spirit. So because of that, we will know. what God has planned to give us, what He freely gives us. And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 14, in the New Living Translation, Paul continues to write, listen to this, Paul's final greeting to the church in Corinth. Listen to this, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. Now, he's saying this at the very end of his talking there, of his expressions that he had, the Holy Spirit led him to speak. And he's basically telling us that we got understand that that God's grace is what allows us to have communion with the Holy Spirit and have communion with power of God himself and that God's grace was submitted to us through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus. And by sacrificing his son, he showed how much he loved us and showed how much he wants to have grace for us to forgive us of our sins. And it says, so Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is what he wants all of us to have. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That's how we know God's will. We have fellowship. We have relationship. We have daily contact with the Holy Spirit in our life. and we avoid just trying to do things on our own, going in the direction that we think is fine and then hoping that it turns out alright. No, we don't do things that way. As Christians, we've got to just surrender to the Holy Spirit, seek

12:27 God's Word for guidance and direction, pray daily in some manner or another. I'm not saying 12 hours a day, I'm just saying you should have a time of prayer each day to communicate with God and ask the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and direct us. And all that comes together so we will understand that the Holy Spirit knows God's will and he reveals that to us as we follow him. Now in John 14 26 in the New Living Translation here's something else that was written this time by John. It tells us that the Holy Spirit teaches us and reminds us of what Jesus said. So once again we learn a little bit of something from another apostle who said who you know John is saying hey I I understand now there's the Holy Spirit that's teaching me and remind me of what Jesus said so therefore once again surrender to the Holy Spirit have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, have communion with the Holy Spirit on a daily basis, and he will... Reveal God's will and help us to understand God's purpose for our life. The Holy Spirit helps us with our life and our relationship with Almighty God. I'm gonna read that again. I wrote that down to share that somewhere in this podcast and I felt like it came up at the right time. The Holy Spirit helps us with our life. Okay, that's the first part of it and our relationship with Almighty God and he does that through our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Okay, I've spent about the first half of this podcast maybe a little bit more than the first half of this podcast talking about how to know God's will. And one of the reasons I did that is that we've got to understand the consequences of not doing God's will when we

13:58 know to do His will. Now I told you a story in a prior podcast about when we were living in a little town called Sierra Vista. God had called us into ministry and called me specifically into preaching and I felt the power of God. But I also had a career going with the bank and I wanted to make enough money so I could support my family and I was afraid. to go into ministry at that time because I felt like I'm just too young. I got to first get my career going and it was all out of God's will. I mean, I was making all these decisions on my own. So we ran up to Tucson and I got another job that was helped building my career. And I left the church where God was talking to us so strongly and dealing with us and helping with us and the church exploded and was growing. But we left there and went to another location. Well, I was out of God's will. And during that whole time that we were in Tucson, it was miserable. My boss was a terrible person to work for. like the city that much. We didn't enjoy it at all. Just the whole confusion of the community was there were people who were talking about things that were anti -God and there were people I knew in business there. I met more ungodly people than at any other time during my banking career. And Lord, you know, basically continued to bless us and help us and we found a good church and we settled in there and was trying to get an understanding of what God wanted to do with us in our life. And I was kind of doing what Paul was doing. I knew what I should do, but I didn't do it. And even when I was doing what I shouldn't be doing, I did it anyways. And so that's why I guess I love that scripture so much. But I understand that's what happened in my life. And I hope that those

15:30 of you who are listening will understand that those things do happen in our lives. That doesn't mean God is done with it. He's through with us and won't give us another chance. Because shortly after being in Tucson for a couple of years, we got a wonderful promotion to come back into the Phoenix area where I really wanted to be with my family. We found a fabulous church. We got involved with amazing, amazing people. outreach church that was reaching the community and just doing great works and we started going there right after we got back to Phoenix and we now have still been associated with that same church now for like 46 years and so we thank God for that but God had a better plan and a great plan for us but even if we walked away from what we knew what to do and we didn't do it God will still forgive us and cleanse us I think he did that for Paul obviously Paul talked about all the problems he had and the things he was doing wrong, but God had a great plan for him. And Paul turned in the direction of being led by the Holy Spirit and God could use him in a greater way than ever before. And I can see that's happening in my own life. Now, when we were in Sierra Vista in Southern Arizona, we were brand new Christians.

16:34 I mean, we had just found Jesus. We'd only been Christians about a year. And we were really hungry, reading the word of God, getting great Bible teaching, but we were new Christians. sudden there was an opportunity to go down to a little town called Sierra Vista. We prayed about it. We asked God to help us and we knew it was God's will. We knew that we knew that we knew that we were supposed to leave the Phoenix area and go up to go down to Sierra Vista in Arizona. Take this promotion in the bank. And because of that, being led by the Spirit of God, that's when the power of God fell upon that church and there was just an explosion of growth. Just absolutely amazing what took place. That God was using in a glorious way A couple of young kids, my wife and I, we were like about 27 years of age, had only known the Lord for a year and a half or so. But the Lord put us in positions of leadership in the church and the pastor was our mentor and helping us and his wife. And we were receiving wonderful guidance and direction and knew that the Holy Spirit wanted us there. And because we were there, I mean, we look back on our life and probably the greatest three, three and a half years of our entire life was the time that we lived in this little town in Sierra Vista.

17:42 when we felt the call of God on our life, and it was just amazing. I didn't realize though, that I would run in a different direction for a while, but that God still had his hand on me. And so then after I ran away from Sierra Vista to Tucson, was miserable there, then went back to Phoenix, then God said, okay, I'm still here for you. If you want me, I'm going to help you. I'm going to direct you. I'm going to guide you. And I kept praying, Lord, I need to know your will up here, because I know what I did wasn't right down there. I was kind of running from you. And I'm sorry, I... apologize, forgive me, and I really had to repent for getting outside of God's will. And when I did, it was amazing how the floodgates of heaven just opened up.

18:23 And the Lord allowed us to prosper in the church here in Phoenix, and it moved on to the point that we were there for many years under great teaching, a wonderful pastor, and the church we were with grew from maybe a couple hundred people to five or six thousand people. It was just amazing. People getting saved every week, outreaches in the city, just all kinds of great things. And then in the middle of that, the pastor came to me and said, I want you to go to another city, go to Scottsdale, and start your own church. And so we did. And then God turned around and blessed that. So everything that I'd done prior to that time, I know I'm giving you a lot of stories, and I'm trying to keep them in order. Okay, remember, new Christian, Sierra Vista in God's will, Tucson out of God's will, back to Phoenix in God's will, and then serving at a church and doing our best to serve other people.

19:07 Then God directed us to start our own church. So I know what It's like to be in and out of God's will. I know what it's like to know that God is leading you and when I know what to do and I don't do it. And I hope that that'll be a help to you and a blessing to those who are listening in today. So therefore, the church that we started in Scottsdale prospered and did incredibly well. And for like 17 years, we were the senior pastors, the church grew and it prospered and God opened up great opportunities. Our church had over 2000 people in attendance. We had three locations in the Scottsdale area, South Scottsdale, the middle of Scottsdale, up in a place called Carefree, north of Scottsdale. And we had three sites that we were working through, and the jail ministries that we had were amazing, and 2 ,200, 2 ,300 people would be coming to our church services in a week. It was just amazing. And then in the middle of all that, we built this beautiful new church that God provided the funds for, and it just was amazing. When I thought, okay, now things are going great, going great, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit, okay, so now it's time for you to step down and pass this on to a younger person.

20:09 So I was approaching 70 years old when that hit me. And I thought, Lord, is that your will? Inside, I did not want to do it. I did not. I didn't want to leave the church. I didn't want to step away from the church. But I felt the power of the Holy Spirit telling me, it's time for you to move on. I have greater plans for the church. And you're going to be here. You're going to be part of it. But you need to step away. So my wife and I stepped away from being the senior pastors. And we joined forces with another church. It's called Dream City Church now. And our church was the first one to join them. to cause this expansion that took place but now just I hope this helps some people listening in right now because all of a sudden Through all that ups and downs and ups and downs and things in and out of God's will, all of a sudden we had this opportunity, approaching 70 years of age, to merge with another church. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was God's will. I mean, I absolutely knew. I didn't want to do it, but I knew it was His will. So we did. We stepped aside. But as we stepped aside, then we were asked also to join on the board of directors of all the campuses we have. And now today, instead of being a part of one church, We now have 11 campuses and we're involved quite heavily. We're loving it. We know we're in God's will. We're now the congregational care pastors at the church.

21:29 And so we know the people. We stayed at the same church that we were at because we knew so many people and wanted to encourage them to stay with us and be with us. And God has blessed us to give us new ministries, veterans ministries, ministries for widows, ministries for mentoring men and training men for me. And it's just simply amazing. move of God, how he continues to use you if you make yourself available to him. So I hope that, kind of an arduous story, I feel a little bit like I've given a whole lot of talk without maybe enough scriptures to help you, but I truly believe that the Lord wanted me to share my in and out experiences, up and down experiences with the Holy Spirit and with knowing God's will that it might encourage some out there who may have experienced the same thing or similar things. I truly felt led to tell our story, because I know God's will. and how it affected us. You see, the benefit of knowing and doing God's will is that our faith increases, our trust in God grows, we become closer to God, we grow spiritually, and we receive His peace. The challenges of not knowing God's Spirit or following His Spirit and following His will is confusion, doubt, fear, anxiety, worry, and all kinds of things. And those are things I don't want in my life. And so I thank God for the opportunities He's given us. But I look forward to the next 10, 20 years as long as I'm going to be here on earth, that God has great things planned and He's going to do a great work as long as we ask the Holy Spirit

23:00 to guide and direct us according to God's will. Well, I know this has been a little unusual type podcast, one that where I've not talked in the past that much about stories of our background, our experiences and things, but I truly felt led to the Holy Spirit. So I hope that was a blessing to you. So before we close this podcast out, I need to pray for you and talk about what's upcoming. Heavenly Father for those who are listening in I pray that you would touch them and bless them and help them Lord that they would know your will and if they're not in doing your will father that Lord they would not give up that they would continue to press on and do what you've called them to do I pray the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom would give them direction would give them the knowledge that they need to move forward to operate in your will and I pray Lord a blessing upon those don't the father they'll not feel discouraged or defeated or maybe that God doesn't love him anymore, but Lord But I just pray, Father, that you would help them to be just obedient to your word, obedient to prayer, and obedient to build a greater relationship with the Holy Spirit. Father, I haven't got the relationship I need with the Holy Spirit yet, but I'm working on it every day, and I pray that he would guide and direct each and every one of us. Thank you, Lord, for those who are listening in. Thank you, Father, that they've become a part of this podcast. Bless them, Father, I pray, and provide for them, I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

24:17 Well, if you'd like to know more, about Quality Christian Living and about what we do in this podcast, because this series on the Holy Spirit is probably gonna be close to 30 or more podcasts by the time we're finished, and depending on how the Holy Spirit directs us. But there's a number of podcasts. We've done a lot of different topics. So if you'd like to know more about Quality Christian Living, you can go to my webpage at davidcfriendauthor .com. And when you pull up the front page there, you'll notice a link there to all the podcasts we've done. And so all of these will continue to be listed I guess until Jesus comes from what I've been told but they're available to everyone there's some 300 and I think 51 is what this one was podcasts that have been done over a period of about four years so there's topics dealing with finances there's topics dealing with the Holy Spirit the gifts of the Spirit how to operate in those gifts there's series on faith and miracles and just every kind of topic that the Lord has put upon my heart to teach and bring to you after the 20 -some years of pastoring and years of teaching in churches, the Holy Spirit has given me a plethora of topics.

25:23 So you can just scroll down there and see which ones you like. I see that daily people are picking out stuff I've done two and three and four years ago and listening to them and being blessed. So I would encourage you to do that. In addition to that, if you'd like to know about some of the writings that I've had, you can scroll down my web page, just one more page, and you'll see a list of books that are on Amazon right now. There's books on finances, there's books for veterans, there's books for faith. and healings and miracles and so I pray that you would be blessed by those. Matter of fact I'm in the midst of when this series is over I'm going to be doing this if spirit leads as I think he is and that is to write a book on the Holy Spirit and helping people to know how he operates in our lives and how to have the right relationship with him.

26:06 So that's something that we'll be doing and will continue to do. We'll follow up our next podcast will just be a follow -up of what we've done on this one. I really feel like I I haven't been able to express everything I wanna talk about scripturally and about the Holy Spirit and God's will. So we're gonna continue to do that for one more week at least and see how the Holy Spirit leads us there. So I hope that would be of interest to you. I think the things we need to talk about in our next podcast on the Holy Spirit and our will and God's will is the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to help believers, help other believers about understanding God's will. And we'll look at what are the ministries of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit ministers to us and how he helps us to do God's will. So with that, I hope that you'll tune into that. If you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment and rate it and give us a review of the podcast. It really helps us to connect with people and helps us to understand how people are receiving these podcasts. You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Charisma Podcast Network or you can give us a star rating on Spotify. However you choose to support us, we certainly do appreciate that. So I'm going to close this podcast out with a blessing for you and thank you so much for listening in. I pray that God will bless you and that he'll keep you and that his face will shine upon you. He'll be gracious to you and give you peace. May you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers. So until

27:38 next time, may God bless you. God richly bless you. May you know God's will and operate in God's will and receive the leading and direction to the Holy Spirit to help you in that direction. May all of us desire a closer walk with God, a stronger relationship with the Holy Spirit, and just bless each and every one. I want to thank you once again for listening to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Thank you once again for listening in.