Trinity Baptist Church

Knowing and Doing God’s Will

Filled with Knowledge

Colossians 1:9

         

I once read the story about a man who was a guest on a submarine. Before they set sail, he asked one of the crew if there were any special regulations to be observed during exercises.

 

He replied by asking the man how good his arithmetic was. He went on to explain the golden rule of submarine service is to remember how many times you dive, add the number of times you surface and then divide by two. He said, “If there is one left over, don't open the hatch.”

 

Seems simple doesn't it? But for the crew of a submarine that simple rule can make all the difference.  A lot of things in life are like that.

 

That’s also true in Christianity.  It is a simple exercise in doing what you are supposed to do. But how do we know what we are supposed to do?  Or perhaps a better way to ask the question is, “What is God’s will in this decision?”

 

That’s what I want us to explore together for the next several weeks.  How do we discover God’s will?  How do we find direction for the decisions we need to make?  What is the right thing to do?

 

And I want to begin today with some good news.  God wants you to know what to do.  He’s on your side!  He will provide the direction you need.

 

In fact, most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:8-9.  They are precious verses regarding our salvation.

 

But they are completed by including verse 10.

 

There we are told that God has something He wants me to do. And it tells me that there is something that God wants you to do as well and God has already planned ahead of time what it is He wants.

 

So how do I know what that purpose is? How do I determine what God wants me to do?  Well, just like the "Golden Rule" on board the submarine, knowing much of God's will for our lives isn't that hard. In fact, it's really quite simple.

 

In fact, in the Bible, God has already spelled out some very basic things about His will for your life that you don’t have to wonder about.  He has taken all the guesswork out of it, wrote it down in the Bible forever, and it’s there for us to read in black and white.

 

For instance,

 

 

2 Peter 3:9; John 3:16

 

Until we meet that purpose in our lives, nothing else matters.  If you don't belong to Jesus Christ this morning you need to know, it is God’s will for you to be saved.  His plan for your life includes bringing you into His family forever and allowing you to have all the privileges and blessings that accompany that decision.

 

Then, once you belong to Him, He wants you to live a special kind of life.  Listen to

 

1 Thessalonians 4:3a

 

In other words, God’s will is for everyone to be saved and once saved, to live a separate and distinct kind of life that is marked by behaviors consistent with Who He is.

 

If you keep reading in that passage, He actually provides some specifics for us regarding sexual purity and treating others with honesty and kindness and so forth.  When you and I belong to God, He expects our lives to reflect that special relationship we have with Him.

 

In fact, it is not only God’s will that everyone be saved, and that we live a sanctified life, but it’s also His will that your life and mine be models of Christianity for the world to see.

 

1 Peter 2:15

 

We should live such decent lives that even those who hate Christ won't have anything to accuse us of.  So in all of the behaviors, relationships and choices of our lives, we are to represent God to the world.

 

That means in the workplace, in the home, in our marriages, in the way our children behave, in our responses to difficulties, in everything about us, we are to be models of Christianity.

 

 

 

In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  He wants to live grateful lives focused on God's blessings and not be known as complainers.

 

There's a lot more that the Bible tells us about God's will for our lives but those are just a few of the passages that explicitly say, “This is God's will for a Christian's life.”

 

In fact, I think we can safely say the most important thing you will ever discover after your salvation is God’s will for your life.  It is the one thing that makes a difference between successfully living as a Christian and living a life of frustration and defeat.

 

So over the next few weeks, we are going to concentrate on understanding how to know and do God’s will in our lives.

 

Today, to underline just how important it is for us to know and do God’s will, I want us to focus on a thought found in

 

Colossians 1:9

 

Now the book of Colossians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Colosse and the neighboring church in Laodecia. Paul is writing to follow up on a report about the church that he has received from a gentleman named Epaphras who is the pastor or minister at the church. 

 

Paul is a prisoner in Rome, and as far as we know, he never visited the church in Colosse.  All he has to go on is this report from the pastor, and it is a wonderful report.

If we were to look back through verses 4-8, we would discover the church is doing very well. Paul thanks God because he's heard of their faith and the love they have and the hope, and all of the wonderful things about those believers.

 

But I want you to notice something very interesting there in verse 9.  Paul says, “Since I heard you're doing so well I have not ceased to pray for you.”

 

That’s a little bit unexpected.  We wouldn’t be surprised Paul is praying if things weren’t going well.  Or we could expect that if things were going well, Paul is spending his time and energy praying for someone who isn’t doing so well.

 

But Paul said, “Knowing that you are growing and being blessed and progressing in the faith is what is motivating me to pray for you.”

 

I don’t know about you, but that convicts me because so much of the time, we spend our time praying for those who are in trouble and sick and struggling, and God certainly He wants us to pray for them.

 

But we tend to neglect the people who are doing well and growing in Christ and we really don't cover them with our prayers and they're the ones in the midst of the greatest struggles because they're the ones getting the greatest resistance from Satan.

 

So Paul says, “Since I heard you're doing so well, I haven't stopped praying for you.”

 

And notice for what he is asking.

 

Notice, first of all

 

 

Verse 9

 

Paul says, “There's one thing that I pray for you and that is that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will.

 

The great request of his prayer is that they not just know God’s will, but that they “be filled with the knowledge of God's will”.  Now just to help us understand his request, let’s look at a couple of words there.

 

First, look at the word filled. The word Paul uses here is a word that speaks of something being completely filled to the point there is no room for anything else.  It is a word that indicates the absence of anything else.

 

If I fill a glass with milk right up to the brim, it is impossible to add anything else without spilling it. In fact, it is right to say the glass is totally dominated by the milk. That's the word filled. And that’s what Paul is praying here for these believers.  His desire is all that is human will be eliminated as the knowledge of God’s will fills their lives.

 

Just for illustration’s sake, think about Stephen, one of the first deacons in the early church.  In Acts 6:5 we are told he was a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.  It is the same word as filled and the idea is that of being saturated or dominated or totally under the control of.  He was a man filled with faith and the Spirit of God.

Now that is important because a man is under the dominating control of whatever fills him.  It might be anger or sorrow.  It could be fear or faith.

It could be love or lust.  Lots of things have the potential to control us and it all depends on what we are full of.

 

So Paul is praying for the Colossians to be totally dominated, filled with the knowledge of God’s will.  His desire is not just that they know a few things about God, but that the knowledge they have would control their life.

 

Now it seems to me you can know something and not be filled with the knowledge of it. For instance, there are a lot of people in the world who know the facts about God.  Just ask them and they will tell you.  “I believe God does thus and so. . .”

 

And their facts may even be right. A person can believe Jesus was the sinless Son of God, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for sins, rose victoriously from the grave, ascended to the Father, is interceding right now at the Father’s right hand, will one day return to the earth for His church and still die and go to hell.  In fact, the devil believes all of that.

 

In fact, the Bible says demons believe in the One true God and when they think about it they tremble.  They get all shook up.  It runs cold chills down their spine, which is a whole lot more than I can say for a lot of people I know. 

 

Because there are a lot of people, both saved and unsaved, if you observe them, it’s obvious the knowledge of God doesn’t fill their life.

In fact, they’re strutting their way through life, thumbing their nose at God, in spite of their knowledge. So there are lots of people who have knowledge of God, but it doesn’t control them.

 

That’s why a Christian winds up having an affair on their spouse or cheating on their taxes or getting involved in a million other things.  It isn’t lack of knowledge.  In fact, you can look at them and say, “You know better than that!” and they have to agree.  Their sin is a sin against knowledge.

 

In fact, I think I can safely say the biggest grief and saddest fact and greatest disappointment of the ministry is people sinning against knowledge; when people behave a certain way in their spiritual life when they know better.  They have knowledge; they just aren’t filled with the knowledge to the point of domination or control.

 

So Paul says, “I’m praying for you to be filled with, dominated by, totally under the control of knowledge.

 

Listen:  As believers, we desperately need knowledge and according to Paul’s request it is knowledge of God’s will that is needed.  That is the keynote of the Christian life; and not just to know it but to be filled with it.

 

Think of how Jesus lived that out.  He said, "I come to do the Father's will." He prayed in the garden, "Not My will, but Yours be done." He told His disciples, "His food was to do the will of Him that sent Him." In other words, that is what nourished and sustained His life.

 

He prayed and taught the disciples to pray: "Your will be done." John said, "He that does the will of God abides forever." God's divine will is to dominate everything. It is absolutely crucial that a Christian know the will of God.

 

Now with that in mind, I want you to listen carefully to what I’m about to say because the information I’m about to give you can change your life.  The knowledge I'm talking about is directly concerned with obedience. That's why he used the term “filled”.

 

If you study the concept of knowledge in the Bible, you will discover it is never theoretical.  It always describes information that changes behavior.

 

Follows Paul’s thought line here.  The knowledge of His will produces a life that pleases God.

 

You see that in verse 10.

 

Right knowledge always precedes proper behavior. People operate on the basis of what they know.  As a Christian you will never function correctly if you don’t have the right knowledge.

 

Hosea said in chapter 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." People are basically ignorant. Certainly that is true of the unbelieving world.  And I don’t mean that disrespectfully.  There are a lot of smart people out there who are dumb as a rock when it comes to the things of God.

 

In fact, we, unfortunately, have people in charge of the world who don't have a clue about God's will or Word.

They know nothing about making wise decisions, and yet they are in charge of extremely important things.

That’s why you better be careful if you think your security is in your investments or the stock market or what the doctor has to say.

 

Your security is in the Lord and you better be more concerned about figuring out His will than you are how to make wise investments on Wall Street.  Maybe you should consult His Word rather than the stock report or the political page because by and large, lost people with no spiritual insight or connection are in charge of everything the world deems to be important.

 

But in Colossians 1:9, Paul’s prayer is not for the unbelieving world.  He’s praying for Christians to not only know it but be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that it dominates their life.

 

Now all of us come out of a world of ignorance.  As lost people who have been saved, we desperately need to stop living on the world’s information and gain knowledge in God’s will.

 

So how do we do that?  How do we move from being ignorant to getting to know? How do you get from being an unsaved ignoramus to being a disciple of Jesus Christ filled with the knowledge of God's will?

 

Think about

 

 

I would suggest it involves three things.  First, there must be a

 

 

John 7:17

 

How does a person get from ignorance to knowledge? Jesus says, “First of all, he has to want it. He has to will to know. If any man wills to do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine.

 

When a person desires the truth, and desires the knowledge of the truth, I believe God will reveal Christ to that person.

 

And when that person desires the truth, he desires Jesus.  He is the truth and the result of that desire is salvation.  That is God’s promise.  Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they shall be filled.”

 

If you are hungry for God, God will see to that your appetite is satisfied.  But it all begins with a desire for knowledge. 

 

Now, once you get saved, a miraculous thing takes place because God Himself comes to live inside of you.  You talk about having resources, you’ve suddenly got the best you can get!  Scripturally speaking it is the

 

- Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Listen to what John 16:13 says about that.

 

So first is the desire, Christ is revealed, you receive Christ and God gives you the Spirit, and He leads you into all truth. What does the Holy Spirit use a textbook to provide me with the knowledge I need?

 

In the Word of God, I find everything I need to live life successfully.  Everything I need to know about marriage, raising kids, relationships, developing a work ethic, how to get along with others, choosing a church and any other thing I could ever have a question about, I find in the Word of God.

 

This book called the Bible is the ultimate source for discovering the will of God and in that regard, knowing the will of God is no big deal because the will of God is revealed in His book.

 

Now, notice

 

 

What should I expect to happen once I am filled with the knowledge of His will?

 

verse 9

 

The result of being filled, saturated and dominated with this knowledge is that it will control your life.

 

Now remember where we started.  It is God’s will for me to not only be saved, but sanctified.  Sanctification is really nothing more than living in obedience to God’s Word.

 

Now watch how this works:  Sanctification is a result of obedience.  Obedience is a result of self-control.  , Self‑control is a result of mind control. Mind control is determined by knowledge.

 

Or we could say it this way:  What I know controls my thoughts. My thoughts control myself. And myself under control results in obedience.

 

Every so often someone will say they don’t want their child coming to church because we will brain wash them.  You better believe it!  I will do all I can to make sure your child minds is under the control of God’s Word, and if you had any sense you would make sure that happens as well.  And by the way, a good brain-washing would be good for some parents I know as well!

 

The best shot you have of living life correctly is by following God’s will.  That is exactly the though Paul had in mind when he wrote

 

Romans 12:2

 

Don’t be conformed to this world.  Be transformed by renewing your mind so you can demonstrate the good and perfect will of God!

 

Who in the world ever though it a good idea to remove from our schools any influence of God or His Word and them expect that children would act better because of it?

 

Why do we believe we can put any and everything into our mind and it not affect our behaviors?

 

Follow the process in verses 9-10

 

The knowledge goes in, creates within me wisdom and understanding and results in proper behavior.

 

Let’s get a handle on that process.  As I study my Bible, I am gaining knowledge in His will.  However, God’s plan is for it to not to just get it stored, but to produce from that knowledge wisdom and spiritual understanding.

 

That means I am to take that knowledge, develop principles out of it that built upon God's revealed truths, then take those God-given principles and apply them to life with the understanding that what is going on in me and around me is spiritual in nature.

 

So, my mind is under control because it's saturated in the Scripture. Then all of that truth that's in there is synthesized and principalized in my mind and becomes the wisdom of God in my mind and then it is applied as I am understanding the things that are going on around me and making the proper application of God's truth.

 

Then the result of that is found in verse 10

 

That’s why it is so important that we know the truth.  Paul said of the nation of Israel, in

 

Romans 10:2

 

In other words, they're very religious; they just don't know what they're doing. They get all worked up about religion but they have no content.

 

It seems we have churches and Christians all over the place that fit that description.

 

 

 

It expresses itself in three basic ways:

 

For some, it is historical

 

It doesn’t matter what the Bible says, we’ve always done it this way.  My family has always been this or that.  It’s who we are.  Churches that are historical in their application, wind up, sometimes even for centuries, having a form of godliness, but operate in the realm of error and far from the Word of God.

 

Christians who approach life historically are destined to peat the failures of their parents and ancestors, and unless the Truth of God’s Word breaks through all of that, generations will live outside of God’s will.

 

For others it is Social

 

Everything must be seen through the lens of current events.  Therefore there is no absolute truth and everything is open to interpretation.

 

These churches concentrate on social action and peripheral things and the reason is they are in despair over ever reaching any kind of truth because they don't believe in the inspiration of the Scripture. So without any knowledge they wind up sort of waltzing around, ignoring doctrine and it becomes mindless activity.

 

These are the people who disregard God’s word because it is old and out of date and has no relevance to where they live.  Therefore, whatever is acceptable socially is all right with them.

 

The third group operates on the Emotional

 

Experience becomes the standard for truth. What is true is what I experience and that surpasses revealed truth.  But the problem is everyone’s experiences are different.  These are the people who say, “Well I know what the Bible says, but I feel like this or that.  And their experience supersedes the authority of the Bible.

 

And much like we read of the nation of Israel in the last verse of the book of Judges, “There was no king in Israel in those days; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

 

What we need is zeal according to knowledge. We must use our minds. We must use our intelligence. The Bible says: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind."

 

God doesn't want mindless worship, God wants worship in response to revealed truth. God doesn't want mindless living.  He wants us to live according to His Word.  That’s why it is so important that we know God’s will and that’s why we find Paul praying that they may know and be filled with the knowledge of His will and that that knowledge would allow them to create principles that can be applied to behavior.

 

I hope you are beginning to understand the importance of knowing and doing God’s will.  I hope you will travel with me through this study.

 

Maybe you’re here today with that initial desire to know God’s will for your life. You come as we have this time of invitation and let God begin the process of showing you His wonderful plan for your life.

 

Let's pray.