I Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.
Recently a young man came to me after a service at camp and asked me if I thought he was called to preach. He asked me the question based on an experience he’d had. Now I don’t know if God has called this young man to preach or not, but I can tell you part of what I told him. I essentially told him that you do the will of God when you do what is right, and you know the will of God when you begin with what God has already said.
Oftentimes we talk about the will of God, and we think about God’s plan specifically for our lives in the future. I do think God has an opinion about our lives, but sometimes we make it complicated when it doesn’t need to be. We also talk about the call of God. I Thessalonians 4 talks both about the will of God and the call of God, but it is not in the context that we normally imagine.
I Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.” Do you know what God’s will is? God’s will is for you to keep your life and your mind pure. What if a man is a preacher by the call of God at the church to which God has led him, yet he is living a double life by being unfaithful to his wife? Is he really in the will of God? No, he is not! He might be doing what God called him to do and living where God called him to live, but he is not obeying in a very basic area of his life. Many times we are dying to know where God wants us to go to college or what God wants us to pursue as a career, but we are not even doing the basic things we know to be right, right now.
If a young person is not obeying his parents, if a man is not loving his wife, if a wife is not living in submission to her husband, if a family is not doing right by their church, then they are not in the will of God no matter what vocation they may be following.
Verse 7 says, “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.” God’s will is purity. God’s call is holiness. God can guide you a step at a time as you obey what you already know to be true. Many times the issue is not so much God’s will as it is your willingness. The truth is, we already know more than we think we know. God can answer every question you have as you demonstrate a willingness to obey in the things you already know from Scripture to be His will.