Passionate excitement finding God's will

I pulled up a 2012 message from the sermon archives on our Shorewood Bible church website (entitled "A Lesson for Lent from McDonalds), in which Richard Jordan talks about Lent not having anything to do with the Bible, and found this passage:

The word “blessed” in the Bible, when you see it, it’s the concept of happiness and delight. Go back to Genesis 30:13: [13] And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher.

When you say someone is blessed, what are you saying? “Happy am I.” So when God is called the blessed God, Paul’s really saying He’s the happy God.

That doesn’t mean He just sat down and watched Johnny Carson and got some chuckles out of the monologue. Happiness in the Scripture is not something based on just the surface kind of things.

Look at why Leah said she’s happy. The name Asher means "happy." When she had this little boy born into her life, she said, “We’re going to call him Asher because happy am I.” The happiness is the joy of a newborn son into the family.

You get the idea of “blessed be God.” It’s not just, “Oh, we’re going to bless you.” This is, “Man, God’s excited.”

Look at this. David says in Psalm 103:1, “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

You read that and you say, “Who’s David talking to when he says that?” He’s talking to himself. He’s not talking to God. You know how you know? He says, “Bless the Lord.” Who you talking to, Dave? He’s talking to his soul.

You know, a lot of times we get in trouble because we listen to ourselves more than we talk to ourselves. That sounds screwy, doesn’t it? If you would preach the gospel to yourself instead of listen to yourself, running off about this and that, all that stuff that you can come up with . . .

You know, you can beat yourself up real good, can’t you? God says, “You know what you need to do; you need to bring all those thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ and set your affection on things above.”

Go corral up your mind and get it under the control of truth; cinch it up under that girdle of truth. Get it tied down by the truth of God and you do that by renewing your mind.

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Isaiah 9: [6] For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

[7] Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

When it says, “the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this,” that’s saying, “Here’s what He’s going to do, here’s what Christ is going to accomplish, here’s how He’s going to execute the Davidic Covenant and the zeal of the Lord—God’s excited about what He’s doing and His working through Israel. God’s got this plan and He’s thrilled about it.”

In John 2 when Jesus runs the money changers out of the temple, He says, “You’ve made my Father’s house a den of thieves.” It’s meant to be a house of prayer for all nations and then the disciples remembered that verse in Psalms where it says “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”

John 2:17: [17] And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

The Lord Jesus Christ was just consumed, eaten up with a passion; with the joy, the delight of what God the Father was doing and His part in it.

You see, when Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” he’s talking about, “You know who God is? God’s somebody who’s excited, thrilled, passionate about what He’s accomplishing in His Son.”

You know what He’s done? He’s brought us into the same joy that He has. Our lives as Believers are designed to be lived with a passionate excitement and joy over what God’s doing. Now, we’re always worried about what we’re doing.

I deal with people all the time who say, “Does the Lord want me to marry this person? Does He want me to go to the mission field? Does He want me to buy this car?” It’s all, “What does the Lord want ME to do?”

You know what I say to people: “Quit worrying about what you’re doing. Relax and find out what God’s doing and then go do that. Because if you’ll get in that Book and find out what God’s doing today in the dispensation of grace, you’ll know what He’s doing and go do that and you’ll be doing the will of God.

His will for you is that you do what He’s doing or, better yet, that you let Him do what He’s doing through you. That it be the life of Christ, His will, His attitudes, His actions that are carried out in your life. That’s why He created you in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2: [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

God’s got this plan for the Body of Christ. I Thessalonians 5: [18] In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

In everything. It didn’t say where. It just said, “Wherever you are, here’s the attitude you ought to have.” Why? That’s God’s will for you.

That’s not hard to understand. It’s like Mark Twain said: “It’s not the verses in the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the ones I DO understand.”

Just start with what you got. There’s an attitude, there’s a thinking process, there’s a DELIGHT. He’s brought us into the ability to delight in what He’s doing.