Colossians 1:9-12

⁹ And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. ¹³ He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Introduction

I’ve always found it interesting that God designed things in such a way that there is a concentration of some of the most significant, whole-life-effecting decisions we’ll make right at the beginning of adulthood.  We need wisdom and understanding concerning God’s will in droves at the same time we’re just beginning to value and acquire it. 

I experienced this in what felt like a nearly overwhelming weight.  By the end of my junior year in college, I had only recently come to faith in Jesus, had not yet read through the Bible even once, and had an almost entirely blank slate when it came to a Christian worldview (I didn’t even know what that was yet).   And yet, I needed to make some of the biggest decisions of my life—when to get married, what to do for work, whether to stay in the area for another year so Gerri could finish school or jump right into some kind of ministry or ministry prep, where to live, etc.  

There were some godly men in my life at the time, but they weren’t much older or further along in life than I was.  It was before the internet was much of a thing, so I couldn’t just Google it.  And, most significantly, I was only tangentially connected to a local church.  In other words, I didn’t know what to do or how to find out.

I worked through much of that as best I could.  Gerri and I got married the following summer and decided to spend our first year of marriage working together with a ministry that had us in a different city most days and a different state most weeks.  

As that came to an end, about a year later, we were faced with many of the same questions all over again.  We were still immature in our faith and had even less access to godly counsel and wisdom this time since we’d been so disconnected for the previous year.

There are few memories more etched in my mind that that of earnestly wanting to know God’s will during that time.  Looking back, I can see now that I didn’t really even know what that meant.  When it came to trying to figure out what God wanted from me in specific decisions, I only had a vague sense of praying sincere prayers and hoping that God would somehow let me know what to do.  

Very sincere, and somewhat desperate, I did the only thing I could think of.  I emailed John Piper.  I’d never met him or had any kind of communication with him.  I didn’t even know someone who had.  I’d heard him speak at a conference, read a couple of his books, and read quite a few of his sermons, but that’s it.  I just knew that I didn’t know anyone at the time with that kind of biblical insight and wisdom.  So, I sent him an email.

Actually, I didn’t have his email address.  I must have sent it to some general church (or DG?) email address I’d found.  Not surprisingly, I never heard back from him.  But to the church’s credit, someone from the church did reply.  He pointed me to a book (Gary Friesen’s, Decision Making and the Will of God) that is still, 30 years later, in the top 3-4 (non-biblical) things I’ve ever read in terms of creating an immediate and lasting change in my life.  

The short version of the book’s message is that the Bible speaks of God as having two wills (in a sense).  One is His providential will and the other is His revealed will.  From this, I quickly learned three things: 1) Failing to make the distinction between them was at the heart of much of my confusion and angst, and 2) I had a long way to go to gain the knowledge and wisdom I needed to make good decisions.  

All of that autobiography was meant to get us to Paul’s prayer, asking God to fill the Colossians with “the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”   And to help us feel the need to have clear answers on a few questions: 1) What are the two wills of God?  2) Which of the two wills was Paul praying that God would reveal to the Colossians? 3) Why was he asking God for that?  And 4) What difference does that make for us?

As I seek to answer those questions from God’s Word, you’ll see the big idea of the sermon: God has revealed to us everything we need to know to know His will, to know what it means to live in a manner worthy of Him.  He does so through His Word, with the help of His Spirit and Church.  The main takeaway, then, is to be a people of His Word, Spirit, and Church.  

The Wills of God

As we turn our attention to the “two wills” of God, I imagine that if you’re not already familiar with that concept (and maybe even if you are), it probably sounds funny.  It might sound a little like the two wills of Paul in Romans 7, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” or like God can’t quite make up His mind about stuff.  

Indeed, the idea of God having two wills should sound funny because it’s definitely not true in either of those ways and it’s only true in a certain sense.  In reality, God has one, perfect will.  He perfectly knows what’s best and always wants what’s best.  He is truly single-minded in the most significant way.  

In what sense do we say He has two wills, then? Only in the sense of our perception.  It’s a way of describing two ways in which God reveals His will to the world.  Again, then, before seeing how all of this applies to the Colossians and us, let’s consider the two ways God reveals His will to the world.

God’s Providential Will

The first has been called many things: God’s “sovereign will” or “efficacious” will or His “decretive” will or His “eternal” will.  I prefer to call it His “providential will.”  Whichever name you prefer, the meaning is the same: There are certain things that God has determined to bring about and nothing can stop or even slow Him down from accomplishing those things.  God’s providential will is all that He has sovereignly determined to bring to pass.  

Perhaps the most succinct and well-known verse on God’s providential will is Ephesians 1:11. There Paul declares that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.”  

Similarly, we’re told in Romans 8:28 that “God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose…”

Proverbs 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. 

Lamentations 3:37 Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

Isaiah 46:9-10  I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, ¹⁰ declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose…”

Daniel 4:35 [God] does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand…

Colossians 1:17 [God] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

These are just a few of the many biblical passages that teach the same idea of God having a providential will.  Collectively, they reveal the key features of this will of God:

1. In includes everything that God has sovereignly determined to do in His own power.  
2. It is secret from us until it happens.  We simply cannot know it before it comes to pass.
3. We are not responsible to know it or make decisions in light of it.  
4. Most of what God wills falls under this category.  Most of what God does, He does not reveal to us in advance or expect us to take into account when making decisions.

Without really knowing it, most of my angst as a young man came from trying to discern God’s providential will.

My prayers were essentially, “God, which job should I take?  Please reveal it to me.”  And, “God, I want to honor you in my whole life.  Please let me know when is the right time to propose to Gerri.”  And, “God, what is your will for where we live after graduation?”  

Those prayers reflected a faithful heart and a right impulse, but they also largely reflect an ignorance concerning the will of God.  I was asking God to reveal to me that which He has determined to keep hidden.  There is no way for that to not be frustrating.  It is right to pray for those things, but my lack of understanding of where to go from there was the problem.  

God’s Revealed Will

The “other” will of God is His “revealed” will (others have called it His “perceptive” will).   It refers to the passages in the Bible in which God has explicitly told us what He requires of us.  In that way, wherever we find a command of God or normative principle from God in the Bible, we have His revealed will.  

The lowest hanging fruit is the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:3-17.

³ “You shall have no other gods before me. 

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image…

⁷ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… 

¹² “Honor your father and your mother… 

¹³ “You shall not murder. 

¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery. 

¹⁵ “You shall not steal. 

¹⁶ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 

¹⁷ “You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s.” 

Likewise, we find another example of the low hanging fruit of God’s revealed will in Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

As we make our way through Colossians, we’ll find many aspects of God’s revealed will.  

Colossians 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him…

Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:12-13 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³ bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other…

Colossians 3:18-21 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. ²⁰ Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

And let us never forget the revealed will of God in Deuteronomy 14:21, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

Again, as I’m sure you can imagine, there are many, many more passages in the Bible in which we find God’s revealed will.  And again, collectively, they teach us the key aspects of this will of God:

1. It was given gradually over millennia, but has now been completely revealed to us in the Bible.    
2. In the Bible, God has revealed to us everything we need to know to honor God in any/every situation and with any/every decision (1 Timothy 3:16-17).  
3. God’s revealed will often comes in the form of broader principles that apply to our situation, rather than specific instruction (telling us the kind of girl we should marry rather than the specific girl; letting us know what good work is and what it’s for, rather than the specific job we should take; revealing to us the things we ought to value in life, rather than telling us specifically where to live; etc.).   
4. We are responsible to know God’s revealed will.  No one will be unaccountable for their actions because they do not have it (Romans 1).
5. God has put His Spirit in us to give us wisdom and understanding, recall, and power to rightly apply God’s revealed will (Matthew 10:19-20; Acts 1:8).  And also to convict us of our sin when we don’t (John 18:8-11).
6. God has given us pastors and teachers to help us understand and apply His revealed will (Ephesians 4:11-13).  
7. God has given us other believers to help us live in light of His revealed will (Hebrews 10:24-25).

How exactly God’s “two wills” can continually function simultaneously is often a mystery, but where the Bible affirms it, we accept it in faith and gladness.

God’s Will for the Colossians

All of that brings us back, full circle, to the question of which of those wills Paul was asking God to reveal to the Colossians.  When we read Colossians 1:9, (And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding), was Paul asking God to fill them with the knowledge of His providential or revealed will?  

It is, as I imagine you already know, the second aspect of God’s will, His revealed will, that Paul was asking God to fill the Colossians with. Paul was not praying that God would reveal His will of providence, but His will of decree.  He wanted God to make it plain what was required of them in their current circumstances.  

If you’ve been here since we began making our way through Colossians, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why Paul was asking God to reveal His will to the Colossians or why the Colossians would have been so eager to receive it.  

They were a church of newer believers in a hostile land.

They were, along with the rest of the early Church, trying to figure out what it meant to live in the New Covenant.

Many who professed faith in Christ were being severely persecuted, imprisoned, and even killed.  

On top of all that, and central to this letter, the Colossians were being bombarded with a dangerous heresy that was, in effect, a “different gospel,” which is no gospel at all.  

And on top of that still, while they had the entire OT text, the NT was not yet finished.  

Grace, as you know, it’s really hard to be in a place that’s really hard.  Genuinely not knowing what God would have you do in that place is exponentially harder still.  Have you ever felt that?  Have you ever prayed a prayer like this for yourself or someone you love?

“God, I would be willing to pay any price that obedience would cost me in this moment, but I don’t know what obedience ought to look like.  It’s one thing to suffer for righteousness, but it’s something entirely different to suffer not knowing if what I’m doing is right or not.  Please fill me with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order that I may act in a manner worthy of and pleasing to you.”

Again, if you’ve ever prayed a prayer like that, it shouldn’t be hard to put yourself in the shoes of the Colossians or Paul who was praying for them.  They needed to know the truth about God and what He would have them do.

Essentially, then, in light of what we’ve seen regarding God’s revealed will, in asking God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, Paul was asking for four things:

1. That the Spirit would direct the Colossians to the OT passages that taught on the aspects of God’s nature that ought to shape their perspective on their circumstances (especially, as we saw last week, that He is eternally Triune, creator, sovereign, wise, good, holy, just, and gracious). 
2. That the Spirit would lead them to, or remind the Colossian believers of, whatever OT passages—commands, promises, and principles—applied to their situation.  Where God had already revealed His will concerning their lives, Paul was asking God to make that clear to them so that they might act on it.  
3. That the Spirit would provide clarity through Paul’s letter (which, whether he or they knew it or not, was God’s revealed will itself).  In that way, Paul’s letter was a significant part of the answer to His own prayer and he was asking God to help them receive it as such.
4. Fourth and finally, Paul prayed that the Spirit would take these revealed truths concerning His will and fill them with the wisdom and understanding they needed to apply them to their specific situation.  They needed, for instance, not only to know that Jesus is over all and in all, but also the wisdom to know how to apply that knowledge to the heresy they were being confronted with and the people who confronted them with it.  Likewise, they needed to know not only that Jesus brought in a New Covenant, but also the wisdom to know what to do with the old covenant laws in light of it.  

It’s one thing to want to honor God in a situation.  It’s something else to know precisely what that means.  Paul was asking God to grant both to the Colossians…to fill them with (1) the knowledge of His (revealed) will (what He wanted from them), (2) in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (how to put into practice what God wanted).  

God’s Will for Us Today

I want to end the sermon by putting two more enormous and essential questions to you: 1) Do you want to know God’s will?  And 2) Are you willing to walk the path God has paved for you to get it?

Do You Want to Know God’s Will?

Do you want to know God’s will?  On the surface, this might sound like an obvious question with an obvious answer, but I encourage you to really consider it.

Of course, there are many things that everyone of us would love to know God’s will concerning; some among us, desperately so (like I described as a young 20-something with huge decisions in front of me).

You might even have a list of things you’re eager for clarity on.  

But, if you’re being totally honest, there are also areas of your life that you would like to keep just as they are, that you’d rather not know the will of God for if it would mean needing to change them.

Likewise, if you’re being totally honest, there are also areas of your life that you already know what God would have you do, but you’re not doing it, because you don’t like His will.

And, if your being honest, there are areas of your life that you gladly, mistakenly think are in line with God’s will.

The bottom line is that none of us are living entirely in line with God’s will, because none of us are perfectly sanctified, and because none of us are perfectly sanctified, none of us truly want to live entirely in light of God’s will.  All of us still have appetites for things of this world, things of our flesh, things even of the devil.  What God wants for us is often scary for those not yet wholly conformed to Christ (which is all of us).

Do you want to sacrifice your only son on an alter if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Abraham?

Do you want to lay on your side for a year as an enacted prophecy against God’s people if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Ezekiel?

Do you want to marry a prostitute and name your kid “no mercy” if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Hosea?

Do you want to sell everything you have and give it to the poor if that’s God’s will for you as it was for the rich man?

Do you want to follow Jesus unto severe persecution if that’s God’s will for you as it was for His first followers?

Those are just some of the hard things God willed for His people (explicitly called them to) in the Bible.   Do you want to know God’s will even if it means something like that?  

And so, before you say yes to that question, consider carefully what it really means—your entire life, down to the smallest detail, entirely conformed to God’s will for you (no matter how radically different it would be, no matter what it would cost you in earthly terms, no matter what it would mean leaving behind or taking on, no matter what it would do to your reputation or family or job or comfort or life)?

By the grace of God, in faith, though, we say YES!, Grace Church.  We say “Yes,” even if with some measure of fear, knowing that whatever God has for us is infinitely greater than every alternative, no matter how difficult or painful.  We count everything as loss, as trash, compared to Christ.  Truly, we know that to live according to the revealed will of God is Christ and to die because of it is gain.  We say “Yes” in the knowledge that God’s revealed will is worth more than the finest gold and greatest earthly treasure.  We say “Yes” in faith, knowing that it is the surest sign that our hope really is in Jesus.  It’s often hard, but we say “Yes,” knowing it’s always right.

Are You Willing to Walk the Path God Has Paved for You to Get it?

Finally, then, are you willing to walk the path God has paved for you to know His will? Saying “Yes” to the first question requires saying “Yes” to this one as well.  

But make no mistake, Grace, walking the path God has paved for us to get His revealed will doesn’t happen by accident.  We must not only choose it, but we must continually choose it.    

In simplest terms, discovering God’s revealed will for any situation we find ourselves in, is a matter of rightly gathering, interpreting, combining, and applying all the relevant passages of the Bible to that situation.  

If you want to know if you should get married and to whom, for instance, learning God’s will means having a grasp on all the passages in the Bible that speak to the nature of marriage and the things God requires of you and your spouse in it.  Then you begin praying that God would help you love and conform to His design, equip you to fulfill your roles in it, and give you eyes to spot a someone who shares those things as well.  

Walking this path, as you can certainly imagine and have probably experienced, is often difficult.  Finding all the right passages can be daunting.  Properly interpreting them is often elusive.  Faithfully combining them to gain a comprehensive understanding of God’s will is usually tricky.  And then knowing specifically how to apply all of that is regularly intimidating as well.  

Doing any of those things means at least three things according to God’s revealed will.  It means reading the Bible, praying continually for the Spirit’s help, and making use of all the means of grace God has given.  

1. Read the Bible.  Read it every day.  You don’t have to read a lot each day and you don’t have to read in a certain order, but if you want to know God’s will you do have to read the Bible, the whole Bible.  You have to read it eager for understanding and application (knowing that the goal is not only knowledge, but worthy lives).  You have to come to understand what God has really said and what it means to live in light of it.
   
2. Pray continually for the Spirit’s help.  We will never want to know God’s will apart from the Spirit’s help.  We will never look for it by reading the Bible apart from the Spirit’s help.  We will never understand what we read in the Bible apart from the Spirit’s help.  We will never know what to do with what we understand apart from the Spirit’s help.  And we will never, as Paul prays in v.11, joyfully persevere in understanding of and obedience to the will of God apart from the Spirit’s help.  Therefore, Grace, let us pray continually that we would read the Bible, while we read the Bible, and in light of what we read in the Bible.  
   
   Years ago, I learned to pray IOUS.  I have it as a digital sticky note on my desktop.
   
   Incline my heart to you, not to prideful gain or any false motive (Psalm 119:36).  Open my eyes to behold wonderful things in your Word (Psalm 119:18).  Unite my heart to fear your name (Psalm 86:11).  Satisfy me with your steadfast love (Psalm 90:14).
   
3. Make use of the means of grace God has put in the church.  Helping you grow to understand God and His Word is the whole point of Berea.  There we cycle through (every 5-6 years) the most essential tools you need to read God’s Word well—biblical theology, systematic theology, hermeneutics, Church history, and worldview.  Expositional preaching, the central aspect of our worship service, is meant to help you drink the pure milk and eat the solid food of God’s Word.  Discipleship groups focus on pressing further into the preached Word.  If you are a member, you have five elders (and one in particular) committed to feeding you God’s Word and helping you gain the wisdom you need to apply it well.  And one of the primary commitments we make to one another as members is to spur one another on to living as God’s Word calls us to.  

That’s the path God has paved for us to walk to get His will.  Will you walk it with us, Grace?

If so, in closing, I invite you to consider some specific decision you need to make in the coming days/weeks.  When you walk the path God has given you to discern His will for that decision, there will often be two or three options that you can choose from.  Rightly applying God’s revealed will to our decisions usually means there are several jobs that would equally honor God, a number of people who would make a God-honoring spouse, two or three ways you could serve the Church, etc.

Whenever that’s the case, whenever we walk the path God has given us to discern His will for our circumstances and several options seem equally faithful to His Word, we are free to choose the one that is most appealing to us in the glad confidence that God’s providential will, will prevail.  

This is how Paul prayed for the Colossians for their circumstances and this is how I pray for us now.  

Although we will never have a perfect grasp on everything God has said and what it means to apply it, we can get closer and closer as we grow in understanding and making use of His means of grace.  And along the way, the gospel is good news that whenever we offer our obedience in genuine faith, in Christ, God will receive our imperfect obediences as righteousness.  

God has revealed to us everything we need to know to know His will, to know what it means to live in a manner worthy of Him.  He does so through His Word, with the help of His Spirit and Church.  Let us, therefore, give ourselves in increasing measure to being a people of His Word, Spirit, and Church.  And all of that because Jesus Christ, as Paul proclaimed, is over all and in all!