Being Smart about God’s Will
Love and wisdom; God and you
Colossians 1:9-12
The Colossians had experienced hope. The Gospel delivered to them had presented them with the promise of the kingdom and that promise had given them hope, which in turn gave rise to active faith and love. This faith and love were more than mushy spiritual feelings, they were profound movers in their lives, causing them to behave toward others in certain ways.
So when we come to Paul’s statement "For this reason," he is speaking of the profound improvement in the lives of his readers. They have become people who are actively involved in expressing their hope through loving others and through communicating this same hope, giving the gospel to those who need it.
Because of your faith and love and the thankfulness I feel, I pray for you.
Do you pray for the people you are thankful for?
What does Paul pray?
It is important to notice that the next sentence in this passage is very long. This is the way Paul wrote. In some translations it is broken into shorter English sentences, because that’s the way English is written. But Paul wrote in long sentences.
Long sentences are good for expressing and showing the relationships between very complex ideas. In order to understand a long sentence, we have to go over it slowly and break it down. What is Paul praying for? He is ...
asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will
When Paul asks for this he asks for God to do it in a certain way:
in spiritual wisdom and understanding
These are thinking words. Paul wants the Colossians to be smart, not just intellectually, but spiritually. This is an important distinction, because a person can have knowledge. He can memorize an encyclopedia, but that does not mean he understands what he knows.
He can have an understanding of it. He can know Einstein’s theory of Relativity. He can even understand it so well that he knows how to make a hydrogen bomb. This does not make him wise.
A truly smart person:
• Has facts (knowledge)
• Has understanding (knows what the facts mean)
• Has wisdom (can foresee the implications of applying his mind to certain situations and exercises it with moral integrity).
Hitler had knowledge - he knew genetics, he even had understanding - he could motivate people with his facts using psychology
But he was not wise.
Paul wants the Colossians to have all three.
What is the point behind being truly, spiritually smart?
When we are truly, spiritually smart, we have the ability to please God. We become people of high value.
This sounds bad because everyone has the same intrinsic value. We are all made in God’s image.
But are we worthy of it?
The short answer is no. We sin, we are fallen. But we can be worthy of it, not by any effort of our own, but by God’s grace. That is why it is a matter of prayer for Paul. When we are invested with value from God we gain the ability to please Him.
All guys know what this means. We have all been in the position of wanting to please a woman of whom we were unworthy. We may want to buy her a gift.
So we draw on our vast experience and the advice of other people to know what kind of gift is best:
• It should not say the wrong thing
• It should express something about how we feel
• It should say something about how we perceive her
The problem is usually that we go about this first gift with too little information. We don’t know what she likes or what makes her smile. We are not the best person to be buying her a gift. We are not that likely to completely please her with the present.
The main thing that can change the situation is if she gets us up to speed. She sits us down and explains that she doesn’t actually like the brand of perfume we bought because it gives her headaches and hives. She, instead, gives us a list of her favorites.
By paying close attention and using the knowledge she gives us with understanding and wisdom, we can please her and, ultimately be worthy of her. Well ....
Anyway, Paul is praying that the Colossians will have the opportunity to please God and to become, by His grace, worthy of Him as He reveals to them more and more of His will.
What does a person do who is smart about the will of God as it is revealed to him or her?
She does good deeds
This seems to go without saying. Those good deeds will not save a person. They don’t make a person worthy of God. It is the natural outgrowth of doing the will of God.
What are good deeds?
In this spot, Paul doesn’t say. It apparently goes without saying. He calls it bearing fruit, so it may be related to what he calls in another place, the fruit of the Spirit:
• You will be loving
• You will be joyful
• You will promote peace
• You will be patient
• You will be kind
• You will be "good"
• You will exercise faith
• You will be gentle
• You will be self controlled
Any deeds that are the outgrowths of these attitudes and dispositions are "good" deeds. is this you?
She knows God better
We did not just come full circle. Paul wants his readers to know God’s will so that they can pursue knowing Him. What is the difference?
In the movie Wall Street. Michael Sheen plays against Michael Douglas. Douglas is a hard-hitting venture capitalist, rich, ruthless and aggressive.
Sheen is a wannabe. He wants to work for Douglas, He wants to know what he knows. He wants to be rich and powerful. But in order to do that, he has to get close to him.
So, he brings him a box of his favorite Cuban cigars and some valuable inside information.
Here’s the point. He knows what Douglas wants, so he uses that information to get close to him so that he can learn more about what makes the man tick.
He does what the man wants
So he can get close to the man
As a person knows more about the will of God, he becomes more attracted to the God of the will. He learns and wants to learn about what is in God’s heart. It opens up whole new venues to knowing God.
She will get spiritually stronger
This will show itself in patience and endurance. Who is stronger the man who can lift free weights or the man who can carry a car? It isn’t just about having the ability, it is about being able to sustain the action.
• You can be insulted and put up with it.
• Can you love an insulting person?
• You can pray for 10 minutes
• Can you pray for 10 minutes every day?
The beauty of it is that your strength will not find its source in you. It will find its source in the power of God.
Perhaps you’ve seen a person holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. The person looks very strong in the picture, bracing a multi-storey building. The thing that makes the picture fun, is the knowledge that it is not real.
The truth is that the tower is being held up by its own architecture and the forces of gravity on the foundation and the ground. It will not lean forever, but for now, it is an engineering marvel. What holds up the tower? Math holds up the tower, something bigger and more inscrutable than any person in any picture.
The person who is smart about the will of God has strength and patience that goes way beyond their natural ability. Their strength and patience is founded in God’s mighty power. Being smart about God’s will makes us into people who can take what this world and the Devil can dish out and keep taking it, because it is not about our own natural resources, but about knowing what God wants, pursuing it, and reaping the benefit of His power.
She is thankful
This is not about general gratitude for everyday blessings and the kindness of other people toward us. It is a deep thankfulness for something we have not even seen. It is thankful for something that so far only faith born of hope has revealed:
The ultimate inheritance we have in God’s kingdom
It is thankfulness born of the knowledge that we do not deserve this great gift that we will someday receive in full. It is thankfulness to the loving and kind God who has qualified us for this incredible inheritance.
We are like Annie. We were poor orphan kids with no evidence of anything like a future. But the hope that we embrace and keep close to our hearts gives us faith to look long and hard till we find the Father who will give us everything. God is so much greater than Daddy Warbucks, but like Him, God is the one that comes through and makes us His own and gives us the keys to the kingdom.
It is a gratitude born of faith ... after all, without faith it is impossible to please God.
We can be that person
• The person who does good deeds
• The person really, deeply and intimately knows God
• The person of strength and patience
• The person of gratitude even in the apparent absence of anything to be thankful for
That person is very clearly worthy of God’s great grace. That person is very clearly pleasing to God.
How can we be that person?
By being smart about God’s will - understanding it and following through with wisdom.
So, what is God’s will?
Specifically? For you? I don’t know!
Wait! What good is this whole message if we cannot get to the root of it?
I want to be that person who is characterized by all that incredibly attractive spiritual maturity. I want the opportunity to exercise understanding and wisdom about God’s will, but how can I do that if I don’t know what His will is?
You can, but I cannot tell you what it is
Only God can
So what can you do?
Paul saw this knowledge as the next logical step between where the Colossians were and where they were capable of going. What they were, was a faithful and loving group whose main motivation was the hope of the gospel.
Are you letting the gospel instill hope in you? Does that hope move you to love those around you? Does it move you to act in faith that everything Jesus promised is going to happen?
So ...
Step one: Inundate yourself with the gospel and learn what Jesus is promising there.
Step two: let the promises of Jesus so fill your life that they overflow in love toward others and faithfulness to God. You should be able to see and say what practical shape that love and faithfulness takes. A person who is not at this point is not yet ready for God’s will.
If you are that person, then you are in a position to become the person Paul describes, the person who is smart about God’s will, once you know what it is, which brings us to:
Step three: Pray
It’s what Paul says at the beginning of the paragraph.
we ... have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will (Colossians 1:9 NET)
This is powerful spiritual territory. This is the "personal" part in your "personal relationship with God." This is intimately connected with the prayer Jesus gave us to pray:
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
You are the kingdom, and you are also the vehicle for God’s will to be done here. And His will is only found through prayer.
Do you pray?
How much?
How often?
Paul said, he never ceased praying for this for it.
Do you pray it for your loving and faithful friends?
Do you know His will yet? If you don’t, keep praying.
Do this, this week. Every day when you have some kind of time with God, make a list
My love for others today was demonstrated in ...
My faithfulness to God was demonstrated in ...
If you can answer those two questions, then pray for progressively longer every day to know what God wants from you, personally.
If you can do it for a week, you can do it longer
If you can do it longer, you can make it a habit
If you can make it a habit, you can do it without stopping
As He answers your prayer He will give you knowledge, understanding and wisdom
And He will make you into that person, pleasing Him, worthy of His calling.
