Foundations For Your Faith - Lesson 12 NIV The Plan and Pleasure of God Deut. 29:29 & Ephesians 1:11 Read Deut. 29:29 and Ephesians 1:11 carefully, several times, and then answer the following questions from the verses as noted. Deuteronomy 29:29 speaks of two aspects of God s eternal plan. What are they? 1. 2. According to Ephesians 1:11 and Romans 11:33-36, how much has been planned by God? Does this include sin? Why would God allow sin? In thinking through the meaning of The Will of God, we can define it in the following ways: God s Plan: His Decree; includes all things Eph. 1:11 God s Pleasure: That which is in accord with His holy nature. Duet. 29:29 According to Deuteronomy 29:29, why has God revealed His will to us? What three steps are necessary for really discovering God s will as recorded in Ezra 7:10? 1. 2. 3. What does Romans 8:28-30 reveal about the purpose of God s plan for you? Record the 5 steps in God s plan for your salvation as listed in Romans 8:29-30. Can a believer ever be out of the will of God?
Quiz on Lesson 12 NIV Deut. 29:29 and Eph. 1:11 God s Will In describing the will of God, we distinguish between God s, which includes all things ; and God s, which only includes those things that are consistent with His holy nature. Therefore, we can say all things are in His, but all things are not in His. Using Romans 8:28-30, map out the order of our salvation in time and in eternity.. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Key verse: God has planned all things Key Verse: All of God s plan is for my good I can be out of God s ; but I can never be out of His. God s foreknowledge refers to the fact that God entered into a with us before the world began. (John 17:2)
Teacher s Guide - Foundations For Your Faith - Lesson 12 The Plan and Pleasure of God Deut. 29:29 & Ephesians 1:11 Read Deut. 29:29 and Ephesians 1:11 carefully, several times, and then answer the following questions from the verses as noted. Deuteronomy 29:29 speaks of two aspects of God s eternal plan. What are they? 1. The Secret things they belong to God 2. The revealed things they belong to us so that we may do them According to Ephesians 1:11 and Romans 11:33-36, how much has been planned by God? All things have been planned by God absolutely everything is included in His plan Does this include sin? Yes. It must of necessity include sin if God is omniscient and sovereign, then sin was included. Sin was not a surprise; something that God had to do an end run around to try to resolve. If even one thing was not included in God s plan, then He is either not omniscient. (There was a time He did not know about sin and then had to respond to something not in His eternal plan) or He is not sovereign. (He wasn t really in control and so angels and men did something God had not planned for and so God now had to create a new plan to fix what was out of His control in the first place) Why would God allow sin? For His own glory! Romans 11:36 To reveal His own greatness and glory an entire aspect of God s great nature would never be revealed to His creatures if He did not decree to allow sin and thereby display His justice, His holiness, His grace, His mercy, His longsuffering, the extent of His love and faithfulness. In thinking through the meaning of The Will of God, we can define it in the following ways: God s Plan: His Decree; includes all things Eph. 1:11 God s Pleasure: That which is in accord with His holy nature. Duet. 29:29 According to Deuteronomy 29:29, why has God revealed His will to us? So that we may do it It is not just for intellectual satisfaction, but for personal heart surrender and obedience. We must never think we have learned God s Word until and unless we are doing it!
What three steps are necessary for really discovering God s will as recorded in Ezra 7:10? 1. Devote myself to study God s word 2. and to the obeying of it (observing it) 3. and to teaching God s word to others.. SEEK TO KNOW IT AND THEN DO IT AND THEN TEACH IT What does Romans 8:28-30 reveal about the purpose of God s plan for you? God s good purpose is to make me like Christ Christlikeness is the good that all things are working together to produce. Romans 8:28 would make no sense if not for verse 29 which defines the good of verse 28 and also the individuals to whom this applies the called, the foreknown, the predestined.. Record the 5 steps in God s plan for your salvation as listed in Romans 8:29-30. Foreknown foreknowledge is connected to election foreknowledge does not just mean to know ahead of time it means to enter into a relationship with beforehand knowledge means relationship in scripture Did Jesus in Matt. 7 mean I never knew you (I never knew about you? NO He meant. I never had a relationship with you You have never belonged to me. (Genesis 2 Adam knew his wife.) To know is to enter into a relationship with deep, personal, experiential knowledge not just to know about but to know someone husband/wife relationship. See 1 John this is how we come to know God - Foreknowledge the covenant relationship God has with the elect given to Christ Predestinated to determine the destination beforehand to be like Christ & with Christ Called drawn to Christ, called to salvation this is the effective or efficacious call not just the general call to all men. This is the particular call that results in salvation; it includes the regeneration of the Spirit resulting in repentance for sin and faith in Christ as personal Savior Justified declared righteous on the basis of faith in Christ Glorified fully Christlike in body, soul and spirit. Sinless perfection with a glorified body in heaven. 1 John 3:1-3 Phil. 3:20 In this text, glorified includes the entire process of progressive sanctification and is the culmination of it. Review from Lesson 11 Free-will is always limited by the boundaries of one's nature. Does man have a free will? Yes but it is limited by our nature! Do we have the capacity to seek after God within our nature? No! Does God have free-will? Yes, to do what He wants to do.
God is free to be what He is, not what He isn t! So are you. God cannot choose to sin because there is no capacity in God to choose to sin. It is not within His nature to want to choose to sin. If God is limited to His nature (Holiness) then man is limited to his nature (Sin). Therefore I am free within the boundaries of my nature but I am not free to change my nature. I may wish to be a duck, but I have no capacity to be a duck. I have no capacity to choose to be righteous as a lost sinner, nor even to desire it as a fallen, corrupt, spiritually dead sinner. Man has the free will to do what he wants to do because of who he is by nature. Rom. 3:10-11 "no man seeketh after God." Man does not seek after God until God changes his nature. John 1:12-13. That desire, will, choice, to be saved did not originate in man. God did the work of regeneration in our hearts. "No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me, draw him." We were enemies of God, alienated from God because of total depravity. We are unable to even want God's salvation. "The natural man receives not the spiritual things of God, they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them." 1 Cor. 2:14. It takes the sovereign grace of God. Man died in his spirit, but his soul still lives. He still thinks, reasons, feels and chooses. His soul is corrupted but active, and his spirit is dead. This is what must be born again; his spirit. Why do we use the phrase, "I accepted" Christ as my Savior. Because we did. There is a door to the heart, but it is locked. If God unlocks the door you can open it. Once God opens the door, once God imparts repentance and faith to you through the miracle of regeneration wrought by the gospel and the Holy Spirit, then you choose to accept Christ as Savior. Faith receives. Illus.: Did Lazarus come forth when Jesus said, "come forth.? If Lazarus had a free will when he was in the grave, then he could have said, "I am not coming out." We were dead in the same spiritual sense that Lazarus was dead in the physical sense. When God by His Spirit called our name, we came forth and received Him because God imparted life and faith. (Irresistible Grace) You can resist the conviction of sin but you cannot resist the ultimate result of the sovereign grace of God in the New Birth. God changes your whole nature in the New Birth. This is what the grace of God does. In Salvation, the call goes out; in the call is the power of the gospel; the power of the gospel brings dead sinners to life when attended by the Holy Spirit s regenerating work. Man is not spiritually sick, he is spiritually dead. Sinners do not have the capacity to receive Christ apart from the New Birth, but they do have the capacity to reject and they do so continually. Once the Spirit of God comes upon them in regeneration, their desires change and they choose to receive Christ. Apart from the New Birth they will reject Christ and with the New Birth they will receive Him.
The New Birth is not something that comes after I as a lost sinner on my own choose God. Rather, the New Birth occurs as the gospel is preached, and I hear it and the result of the New Birth is my choosing Christ and believing on Him. If the Spirit of God had not imparted to me faith and life by regeneration, I would never have chosen Christ. No man seeks after God. The "General Call" is when the gospel goes out to all, but the "Efficacious Call" is when the Spirit of God takes that gospel and applies it to the heart of God's elect. We do not have a clue as to who those elect people are until after they have believed. "If any man hear (the dead do not hear) and open the door, I will come in.." If a man rejects Christ it is because he wants to do so. Every man naturally rejects the truth and the light. Thought Question: Can a believer ever be out of the will of God? Out of God s plan no, never Decretive Will; No! Out of God s pleasure yes Preceptive Will; Yes! Whenever I am not walking in the Spirit, whenever I am straying from God s commands I am out of His pleasure but I can never be out of His plan! We cannot be out of His plan but we can be out of His pleasure. We cannot be out of His family once born again, but we can be out of His fellowship! We cannot be out of His plan but we can be out of His pleasure. We cannot be out of His family once born again, but we can be out of His fellowship! John 1:12-13 1 John 1:9 Family forgiveness and also Fellowship forgiveness I am forgiven once for all when?i am saved forgiven and in God s family. But I need continual forgiveness to maintain a close fellowship with God. Both aspects of forgiveness are important. If I walk in obedience to God's word, I will experience His best for me.