A Prayer for God's Will

Church family, I so wish we could be together this morning for worship, but God has again reminded us of his power over the wind, the storms, and the snow.

I didn’t want us to go two weeks without looking at God’s word, though, so I want us to take some time this morning and look at a wonderful prayer Paul prayed for the church at Colossae.

Go ahead and grab your Bible and open it to Colossians 1:9-12.

This is a great prayer for us to pray for our own lives, for our families, friends, and church.

If you are a leader, this is a great model to pray for others as well.

What is it that Paul was asking for? Read with me Colossians 1:9-12.

We can actually break this down into two sections. In the first, Paul says what he is specifically praying about.

In the second, Paul explains why he is praying for that.

So, that’s how we are going to divide our message this morning.

Lets’ look first at the request Paul makes:

1) The Request.

Read verse 9 with me again.

Paul is praying that the Colossian believers would fully know and understand God’s will.

God’s will can be basically summarized as what He desires to accomplish in, through, and around us.

God has a plan, and Paul is praying that the Colossians would have as clear an understanding of His plan as He wants them to have.

I don’t know about you, but I breeze past terms like “fill” too quickly.

Think about filling something up. It has the idea of completeness, doesn’t it?

The request is that we would be full of the knowledge of God’s will.

Let’s look at what Paul isn’t praying, though. Paul’s prayer is that they would always know God’s will, not that they would know the full will of God.

Track with me—He is praying that they would be filled up with the knowledge of His will. That doesn’t mean they will know everything God wants to do.

Let’s show that. I have a glass and a pitcher of water here. If I fill the cup, this cup is now full of water. Is there more water left in the pitcher than will fit in the cup? Yes! The cup is filled, but there is more water than will fit.

In a similar way, we may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, but there is always more He is doing than we will ever be able to understand.

Being filled with the knowledge of His will means we understand what we need to in order to obey, not that we know everything.

The Bible is full of examples of this. If you want a good summary of many of the lives where God didn’t reveal everything they would have wanted to know, check out Hebrews 11.

Listen: you will never fully understand what God is up to, because you can’t!

John Piper has said,

“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”[1]

However, you can seek to understand His will enough to obey what He is calling you to do.

What is keeping you from obeying right now? I would do this, but I just don’t know how….

This isn’t something you can figure out on your own.

Paul says that you must be filled up, not that you fill yourself up.

Only God can reveal Himself to you, which is why it must be, as verse 9 says, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

You won’t find the knowledge of God’s will in a self-help book, podcast, or blog.

The only way you can know God’s will is to saturate your life with His Word so He can help you apply that through wisdom and understanding that only He can give.

Psalm 119:11 CSB

I have treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you.

The psalmist saturated himself with God’s word so he would be ready to know God’s will as God gave him spiritual wisdom and understanding.

A heart saturated in God’s Word spills over into a vibrant prayer life where you talk with God about what you see Him doing in His Word and all around you.

Notice, though, that Paul’s prayer is not academic.

He isn’t asking that God would give them lots of knowledge simply for the sake of knowing it.

In verses 10-11, we see that Paul was praying for a very clear set of results:

2) The Results

Although there are several different results Paul mentions, we can group them into two.

A. Live a God-honoring life

We often see this idea in the Bible of “walking”.

The general sense is that our walk is the way we live our lives.

When God shows us His will, He is enabling us to live the kind of life that honors Him.

Isn’t that our goal?

2 Timothy 2:4 CSB

No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of civilian life; he seeks to please the commanding officer.

C.S. Lewis said this in a message over 75 years ago:

“ To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”[2]

When you and I are filled with the knowledge of His will, we live lives that actually please the great, powerful God of the universe!

That kind of life bears fruit, both by seeing others come to faith in Christ and in living godly lives:

Galatians 5:22–23 CSB

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.

Not only that, but Paul also says that a life lived consistently leads us to a greater knowledge of God.

This is the cycle Henry Blackaby discusses in Experiencing God. As we obey God, we come to know Him in greater ways, which encourages us to obey even more!

We need to pray that we will understand His will so we can live a life that honors Him, bearing fruit in everything, pleasing Him, and that increases our knowledge of Him.

If we are full of the knowledge of His will, walking in a manner worthy of Him, then this will not be a one-time deal. Our life will be characterized by ongoing obedience.

That’s why Paul’s aim in praying is not only that we would live a God-honoring life, but that we would also…

B) Live it consistently.

Look back at verse 11…

Even if we know what God’s will is, obedience isn’t easy, especially when we don’t have as much information as we would like.

That’s why it is so encouraging that our obedience isn’t in our own strength!

It is God’s strength that enables us to carry out what He calls us to do.

In fact, the word translated “might” has the connotation of “power that overcomes resistance,” and it is used only of God in the NT.[3]

Stop and think about it: God wants you to obey Him, so He teaches you His will and then gives you the strength you need to do it!

If that’s how it works, then the last part just makes sense.

God gives strength, which never runs out! If God’s strength never runs out, then that means we will have endurance that will live a life that is pleasing to Him all the way to the end.

Endurance is the idea of being able to stay under a load. Silly illustration: Ever jump in really cold water? Endurance is the ability to stay in there instead of jumping out!

It is difficult to live the Christian life! Our own hearts are still inclined to sin and the world around us is more than happy to sell us all kinds of solutions to any discomfort, so there is always an attractive sin just waiting around the corner.

If you and I were to fight that sin in our own strength, we would never make it!

Yet, since God’s power is limitless, He can equip us to keep going.

As we understand His will, we can better endure because we know that this difficulty is something God is using to shape us into the image of His son Jesus.

With that endurance, you also find that God gives us patience.

Patience is the idea of waiting with a calm, quiet strength.

Waiting to get through a tough situation, waiting for God to answer a prayer, fighting an ongoing battle with sin all get frustrating.

Yet, when we know that God is working His plan and that He is equipping us to live a life that honors Him, we can face even the most difficult situations with calm and grace.

We can wait without worry, complaining, or fear, because we are trusting that God can and will move!

In fact, Paul goes on to say that this results in joy and thanksgiving to God the Father who has done these things for us.

In fact, the language in this passage reminds us of someone who did all of this perfectly.

God created us so we would know him and have a relationship with him, but we pushed him away by doing what we wanted instead of what he wants.

In order to make a way for us to come back to God, Jesus had to die in our place.

Before he was betrayed, he prayed and asked for God the Father’s will to be done, not his.

The writer of Hebrews encourages us to look to Jesus:

Hebrews 12:2 CSB

keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Just like Paul prayed here, Jesus submitted to God’s will, endured the cross, and did so for the joy that would come.

Do these things characterize your life in a greater way than they did six months ago or a year ago? Are you walking in a manner worthy of Christ, where your life lines up with the fruit of the Spirit?

Do you know God better than you did then? Not just know more facts, but is there a settled maturity that is growing about what you know?

Do you sense that He is equipping you to obey Him, and are you patiently waiting for Him to show you what His will is next?

If not, then make this passage your prayer this week. Don’t forget it, pray it every morning.

Write it on you’re a sticky note on your mirror, dash, or monitor at work. Make a background for your phone or an alarm that goes off with this text.

Let’s spend this week asking, not only for ourselves, but for our families and our church!

[1] John Piper, “Every Moment in 2013 God Will Be Doing 10,000 Things in Your Life”. http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/every-moment-in-2013-god-will-be-doing-10-000-things-in-your-life. Accessed 16 June 2016

[2] C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”. http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf. Accessed 16 June 2016.

[3] Geisler, Norman L. “Colossians.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985. 671. Print.