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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Don Mackintosh

The Will of God, Part 2 - the Purpose

Father in heaven, Lord, we're just thankful.

We're just so thankful for the power of your example.

We're thankful for your ongoing ministry even as we speak in the heavenly sanctuary.

I really have nothing to offer except your word.

And I don't even understand it like I should, but I want to stand under it.

Nothing is more important, you know, to me than to stand under your word and before your people.

They may not know that, but I ask somehow Lord just through the time that we spend here together that somehow, someway, you can re-clarify in our minds through the outpouring of your spirit in this place.

We might forget it tomorrow, but Lord that it would sustain us for this part of the journey, or maybe even more, maybe it would change the course of a life.

So I don't know exactly what will happen.

You know what I've thought about, what I've prayed about this morning, and what you've laid on my heart.

Help me to share that if that's what you want or help me to share what you'd want me to share.

So cleanse my heart, cleanse my mind, cleanse my thoughts, cleanse our thoughts, our minds, our hearts collectively, that through your body you can transmit a message to your body that would be useful in advancing not our plans or our desires but your kingdom in Christ's name amen I don't know about you but I like to read at least I thought I like to read until I went to Jonathan's house and every single room is full of books, some packed and some unpacked.

And I thought, man, I said to Jonathan, I said, this morning, do you, have you actually read, you know, these books, and usually when I ask people that, they say, oh, no, No, they're just collector's items.

Jonathan said, yes, I actually have read about half of these books, which was good.

I mean, given the amount of books, it was like 144, 000.

And I asked him, did this take you about 2, 300 years?

The wise man said, of making of many books, there's no end, and much study is worrisome to the flesh.

Therefore, hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

But I was reading a book recently from Stanford University, and 1 of the most famous or currently 1 of the most sought after classes at Stanford University is a class that is taught on knowing or understanding what's called the willpower instinct.

It's a course on the will, how to understand your will, how to understand your willpower, how to unleash that willpower to get accomplished what you want.

It appears that people want to understand the will.

And they want to understand where it comes from.

This particular approach, the willpower instinct, talks about it from an evolutionary standpoint, which of course I don't concur with.

But I believe that God, as I mentioned last night, everything depends on the right action of the will, as it says in Steps to Christ, page 47, and as it says in Philippians chapter 2, and that God has implanted his will into our lives if we allow it.

Not the will of the flesh, but the will of God.

And so when I see that 1 of the seminal universities, at least on the left coast, is looking at the will, I get excited.

And I'm also excited about another book that I've been reading, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength of Willpower.

Not so much because, again, of the underpinnings, but because of the fact that in this book, as in several others I'm reading, you see I'm getting ready for those talks I'm giving at the convocation in a couple weeks on choice and the will, and so I'm trying to figure out what different people are saying.

I'm excited because even though they're very interested in the will throughout, they had to acknowledge in a complete chapter that somehow it is God's influence that works in the lives to will and to do.

It's an amazing thing what they're admitting and what they're saying and it's an amazing thing that we now in culture at least have moved beyond the self-esteem movement and they're recognizing that's running out of steam Because it's based on self and and it's getting back to the very words at least of Inspiration and I'm excited about that.

So as I was reading this book And by the way, we're gonna be studying Romans chapter 12, if you wanna open to that.

This is still my introduction though, but Romans chapter 12, we're gonna develop 4 points from that, lest you think, where is his Bible?

But as I was reading that book, and as I thought about coming here, I know that some of you could care less about the medical school graduation today.

And some of you could care a lot about it because maybe you're here because of it.

And maybe you don't even know that there's a graduation here, although you saw some people walking around in some interesting outfits.

But I begin to read in that book about, this book from Stanford, about the danger with progress.

In 1 study, they reminded successful dieters of how much progress they had made towards their ideal weight.

They then offered the dieters a thank you gift of either an apple, which of course I resonated with, being a Macintosh.

A thank you gift of either an apple, which of course I resonated with, being a Macintosh, a thank you gift of either an apple or a chocolate bar.

So they said, look, which would you like?

85% of the self-congratulating dieters chose a chocolate bar over the apple.

But the other group, They didn't even tell anything about them, they just offered them the 2 articles of food, an apple and a chocolate bar.

They didn't mention anything about how great they had done in anything, they just said, look, we've got 2 options here for you today and guess what happened?

And so the researchers said, there is a danger in congratulating yourself or talking about all the progress that you have made.

They found that students who were made to feel good about the time they had spent studying for an exam were more likely that evening to go out and indulge themselves.

And so The researchers said, you know, it's a dangerous thing to congratulate yourselves.

The danger, they called it, of self-congratulation.

But then the researchers begin to ask why.

I mean, we want to say, you're doing a good job.

Maybe that's okay, but when you're saying, I'm doing a good job, look at me.

Why is self-congratulation such a problem?

Progress can cause us to abandon the goal, to abandon the goal that we've worked so hard on because it shifts the balance of power in our lives between the 2 competing selves.

You see, there's a struggle always going on.

I gotta press towards the mark of the upward call.

And when I say I have arrived or I've achieved, then we lose sight of the goal and we can fall.

That's what they call in the psychological literature goal liberation.

Self-control quote, self-control success has an unintended consequence.

It temporarily satisfies and therefore silences The higher self, said the researchers.

When you make progress towards your long-term goal, your brain, with its mental checklists of many goals, turns off the mental processes that are driving you to pursue your long-term goal.

It will then turn its attention to a goal that has not yet been satisfied.

The conclusion to this particular section and discussion was this.

The problem with progress is how it makes us feel.

And even then, it's not only a problem if we listen, it's only a problem if we listen to the feeling instead of sticking to our goals.

Progress can be motivating and even inspire future self-control, but only if you view your actions as evidence that you're committed to a larger, loftier goal.

This was the same concern that I found as I looked in Romans chapter 12.

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The Will of God, Part 2 - the Purpose

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