God's Will For My Life Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• One of the questions I hear a lot from people concerns the issue of God’s will for their lives.

• People want to know what God wants from them. I believe that many Christians would really like to know what God’s will for them is.

• The question we have to ask ourselves is, “How badly do we really want to know what God’s will is for our lives?

• Is it something we want to know bad enough that we will do what we need to do in order to obtain the knowledge?

• Is it something that we see as worthy of putting the time to pursue?

• Today, I want to share some thoughts with you concerning God’s Will for your life.

• I think for many of us, the value of knowing God’s will for our lives is not high enough on our priority list for us to really spend the time we need to in order to understand it.

• I hope today to be able to help you to understand the value of knowing God’s will for your life. Then my prayer is that once we understand the value of knowing it, we will put knowing God’s will for our lives high on our priority list.

• In the passage we will look at today, Paul continues to share his prayer for the people in the church at Colossae.

• Let us look at Colossians 1:9-12 together this moring.

• SLIDES #2-#3

• READ Colossians 1:9-12

• SLIDE #4

SERMON

I. GOD DESIRES YOU TO KNOW HIS WILL. (9)

• God is not trying to hide His will from you. He really does want you to know what He wants from you.

• It would be nice if God will call us on the cell phone or send us some emails.

• Through Jesus, God has made one thing very clear, He values us. Another thing we learn is what pleases God. Jesus was our ultimate example.

• Here is something Paul prayed for and something we need to grasp.

• SLIDE #5

1. We can be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

• Paul would not be asking for something that cannot happen.

• For some of us, this would tell us that if we accumulate enough book learning or enough education, we have mastered what Paul is praying for.

• The word used for “knowledge” is used in a compound form which is not the normal usage for the word.

• In this form it denotes a deep and thorough knowledge, it is a knowledge which grasps and penetrates into the object. A deep and accurate comprehension.

• This “knowledge” will saturate all one’s being, thoughts, affections, purposes, and plans.

• John MacArthur Jr states: The Bible views knowledge of doctrinal absolutes as foundational to godly living. Most of Paul’s letters begin by laying a doctrinal foundation before giving practical exhortations. For example, Paul gives eleven chapters of doctrine in Romans before turning to godly living in chapter 12. Galatians 1-4 are doctrinal, chapters 5 and 6 practical. The first three chapters of Ephesians detail our position in Christ, while the last three urge us to live accordingly. Philippians and Colossians also conform to the same pattern of doctrine preceding practical exhortations. Godly living is directly linked in Scripture to knowledge of doctrinal truth. (MacArthur Jr)

• This is a knowledge that will change one’s life.

• God demonstrated His will in a broad sense through Jesus. In this passage we see that knowing God’s will for our lives will have life changing effects.

• SLIDE #6

• Proverbs 19:2 (GWT) 2 A person without knowledge is no good. A person in a hurry makes mistakes.

• Without knowledge, we will be in trouble. If we do not know anything about God’s will for our lives, what are we left with?

• SLIDE #7

2. Knowing God’s will takes more than just a little reading.

• Knowing God’s will for us takes more than just speed reading through the Bible. WE need to do more than just read.

• SLIDE #8

a. We need to have spiritual wisdom and understanding.

• Wisdom is the ability to collect and concisely organize principles from scripture.

• In order to have spiritual wisdom, we must be spiritual.

• READ 1 Corinthians 2:1-16

• We need to have the mind of Christ which is given to us through the Spirit that is given to us when we are immersed into Christ.

• Understanding is the ability to apply the principles of scripture to everyday life.

• We need to be connected to God in order for us to really grasp what God’s will is for us.

• We need to not only read the word, but we must pray and meditate on it. The more we know our Jesus, the more we will understand what He wants us to do. It becomes more clear to us.