Colossians 1:9-14 Knowing His Will

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Good morning.

We're going to go ahead and get started here. So welcome to Recast Church. And I know it feels really uncomfortable for some of you because the donuts haven't arrived yet.

And so before there's an uprising, know that they're on their way here and they'll be here in just a couple moments.

So we didn't overlook that this morning and they'll be there. I just want to welcome everybody and say how glad I am to gather together with God's people this morning.

And I'm glad that the roads were good this morning and we were able to get in here. And I'm just very thankful for the

Lord's Day and an opportunity that we have to gather together to hear from God's Word, to worship Him together, and just to be together as a church family.

I rejoice and I'm thankful for that. Be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in.

Even if you've been attending here for a while, if you have updated information, you want to share a prayer request on there, there's a place for comments and suggestions there.

You may notice that we've done some things different recently, that we've got a new format to the worship folder, that the seats are set up a little bit different.

If you have any feedback for us on the way that things are changing or are different, or even suggestions that you have, feel free to let us know that on that connection card.

But if it is your first time with us this morning, then we ask that you also fill that connection card and take it out to Leah at the welcome table, maybe during connection time or at the end of the service.

She has something for you there. And do know that by sharing your email address with us, we do send out a weekly email called the e -cast.

It's all kinds of links and activities and events. It links to our Facebook page, my blog, all different kinds of things there, so you can take advantage of that.

And thank you that you are here. And then also, you received an offering envelope when you walked in.

There's a black box out on the table. If you choose to give this week, just continue to rejoice in the way that God has provided for us from day one at the very start of our church, and continues to provide for us as we continue to try to be good stewards of his money.

And are just grateful that God has blessed us with a good chunk of money in the bank towards building, and that continues to roll.

And so we'll be giving you updates as those come in. Right now we don't have anything, nothing really to report other than that God continues to bless in that way.

And we are talking with some people about some cost things, and different stuff about what it might actually cost to build certain types of construction, and things like that.

Here at Recast Church, we believe in a simple model of maturity in the Christian life. But I want to be clear that when we talk about simplicity, and think about that as a core value, the

S in Recast stands for simplicity. And the goal is that we would have a simple statement of the way that we grow.

Growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service. But the reality of life is that even if it's a simple statement, it's not always easy for us to apply, right?

How many of you know there's some really simple things that are actually quite complex down deeper at the level.

And so when we talk about simplicity, we recognize that also when we get together in relationship with others, there's a lot of complexity that's involved in that as well.

But we believe that maturity, when we talk about this simple model of growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service, we believe that that growing defines maturity.

So a lot of people think of maturity, I was raised to think that maturity is the crossing of a line, that one day

I will become spiritually mature, and then everybody can look at me and go, oh wow, Don, you're so awesome because you're spiritually mature.

It's like a line that's finally been crossed, right? Any of you raised that way to think of things that way, and think in terms of a line that's crossed, just me or anybody else?

I was raised to think that way, and yet here at Recast, we believe that it's growing that defines the maturity, that you don't arrive at a line, but that you continue to grow.

And so whether you come here with very little scriptural understanding, very, very, like maybe not even brought up attending church or hearing the

Old Testament stories in Sunday school, and then some of you were like, I mean, it's like you were born in the church and your mom attended the day that she gave birth to you, and you've been in church every day since, and you were raised, and now you're in your 60s, and you're like, man,

I've just always been around the church. How many of you know you can always grow? Did you know that? And you should always be growing, and that's what we believe is the definition of maturity here, growing in faith, that is understanding

God from his word and applying it to our lives, growing in community, that is with others in relationship, and growing in service, that is using the gifts and talents that God has given us to further advance his kingdom cause and to serve others within the body of Christ.

And so we haven't even been able to develop, by the way, we tried multiple times over the course of our seven -year history to develop a logo that defines that, and we can't, and part of the reason is that you can't take a snapshot of growing, okay?

You can't represent that on the page. Now, maybe what we need is, what's it called, the animation that actually moves, like a gif or whatever, is it a gif?

Did I get that right? But maybe we should just have like something that actually moves like on the computer so that then you can show it kind of expanding and continuing to grow or something like that, and then that would be more like a pictorial model of what we're trying to accomplish here.

But we're suggesting that maturity is not a static arrival at a snapshot in time, just like you cross some invisible spiritual line and now you're mature.

But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as he was writing the book of Colossians, seems to agree with that idea as well, that the

Christian life is one of continued and constant and regular routine growth over the course of time.

Now, that doesn't mean that it's not sometimes three steps forward, two steps back, but that there's a growing that occurs in the

Christian life that continues and doesn't stop until the day you arrive in the presence of Christ himself.

And so in our text this morning, Paul is going to expound deeply on the Christian life by showing us the way that he prays for the church in Colossae.

He's going to demonstrate prayer to us. And although a wonderful application to this text is that we should pray deeply and pray theologically informed prayers for one another and pray for other churches and pray for other works in the community and throughout the world, but the content of his prayer is a powerful description of the engine that drives a life that pleases

God. Did you hear me say that? A life that pleases

God. I want to please God. Anybody with me on that?

Anybody wants him to smile over you? Anybody want his delight in you? Yeah. I want to walk in a manner that is worthy of the

Lord, as this text says. And if that seems like a lofty statement that seems nearly unattainable to you, then we're on the same page at the start of this text this morning.

If that seems like a really lofty thing, that God would be pleased with you, that you would walk in a manner that's worthy of the

Lord Jesus Christ himself. Wow. You might say, me?

Worthy of Christ? Me? Pleasing to God? So hold on tight, because I believe that we may just find that the fuel to get there is available to each and every one of us this morning.

A life that is pleasing to God. A life that is worthy of the Lord. So let's open our

Bibles to Colossians 1, verses 9 through 14. If you don't have a Bible or some way to navigate to Colossians on your lap,

Mike is back here with some Bibles. You could just raise your hand and grab one of those. He'll be happy to bring you one, and then you can just take that out the door with you.

We want everybody to have a copy of God's Word. But follow along as we read Colossians 1, verses 9 through 14, which is what

God has selected for us to listen to and to take on board and to grow us in our faith this morning.

So follow along as we read. 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, 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.

May you be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the

Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved

Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, what a delight it is to gather together as your people.

I just counted a privilege to be here in the midst of these people who are striving and struggling and working to continue to grow in faith, continue to grow in community, to continue to grow in service.

And we recognize that we would be nothing without you, and we owe you all the credit for anything that is good in our lives.

And so Father, as we have an opportunity to sing some songs to you, I pray that you would receive these songs as worship to you.

Father, that as we have an opportunity to contemplate and consider our lives before you through this text this morning, and to consider how well we know your will, how much we have lived based on spiritual understanding and spiritual wisdom, and then as that foundation of knowledge of your will increases in our lives, that we might actually act on those things and live out a life that is pleasing to you in a variety of ways as this text spells out.

But Father, thank you. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for salvation in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your church.

Thank you for the chance that we have to gather together and to mingle our voices together in praise to you this morning.

I pray that you would be honored and glorified in our gathering. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You can go ahead and be seated, but remember that I want you to get comfortable at any time.

If you need more coffee, juice, donuts, you can take advantage of those. And then restrooms are out the hall at the end, men's upstairs, women's downstairs, in case you need those and you didn't know where those were.

And then also please keep your Bibles open to Colossians 1, 9 through 14. I love to see those

Bibles open and just to see you referencing them and looking at them, because that's our outline for the text this week, is every week as we walk right through and verse by verse.

And sometimes I wonder if you're able to follow that, because I kind of go all over the place, but I do walk through the text, and so hopefully you're able to see some of the flow of that.

But kind of starting off, I'd like to suggest to you that our prayer lives demonstrate quite a bit about us.

And before you glaze over and assume this is another one of those you -don't -pray -enough sermons, let me just encourage you to take a moment and genuinely consider your prayer life.

I know what it's like to squirm with that question, do you pray and how often and all those things, and how many of you would admit you could do more, right?

Even if you have a really great prayer life, even if you're taking large chunks out and then on the drive in and during meetings and stuff, you're kind of praying to God and stuff like that, you can always improve and we can always grow in that, and I recognize that.

And really, if we're honest, for most all of us, prayer does not come easy.

And I'm not sure that for Paul it was any different. I'm able to just, just prayer came natural to him.

And man, you know, you're never going to be quite like Paul because he just was a man of prayer and it was easy for him.

For anyone, think about what we're doing when we pray. Think about it in just plain terms. Really, for anyone to take time to speak to the invisible

God, while the pressing visible concerns are all around us, screaming for our action is never easy, right?

Because every moment you spend praying is a moment that you could be, what? Doing something.

Isn't that the way we think of it? Every moment that you spend praying is a moment, every hour that you spend in prayer is an hour that you could be doing something.

And we are a people of doing, and the assumption is, well, when you're praying you're not necessarily doing something, but maybe you could be a part of the solution, right?

Have you ever thought that? I mean, I've been guilty of thinking that. I'm your pastor, and I'm telling you, I've been guilty of thinking that before for my own life.

Man, I could either just stop and take a minute to pray about it, or maybe I could just solve it, right? You ever felt like maybe you could be the solution?

I think there's some reality to that. Sometimes in our prayer lives, from that flows us being a part of the solution, right?

But bringing it to God is an essential part of our lives. Life is a balancing act of being something and doing stuff.

But all I'm suggesting so far is that we can learn something about someone by the way that they pray.

And Paul, in our text, who was a very busy man, yeah,

I mean, you think you're pretty busy. We're all pretty busy. We're Americans, and we're running full tilt in every direction.

Paul was a busy man. He had a job making tents, according to the book of Acts. He had tons of correspondence with various churches.

He mentored young ministers. He taught in synagogues, preached in open air venues. He traveled bringing the gospel to remote places.

And equally, we see from his letters all kinds of indication that he was a man with a deep, rich prayer life.

But I believe he had to work at it. And so in verse 9, we see that from the time he has heard about the gospel taking root in this city,

Colossae, he hasn't been there. But from the time he caught wind that God was doing a movement in another community outside of where he lived, he says,

I have not ceased to pray for you. He had not stopped praying for the

Colossians. Now, that's not to say that he went without food and went without sleep for however long it was from the time he sat down with his pen in hand to the time he before when he had heard about their love in the spirit for one another and how the gospel had taken root there.

But he is bringing the church in Colossae to his heavenly father in prayer very often. I get the implication from this is that when he prayed, he lifted up the

Colossians. And I believe, by the way, I think it's important for us to understand that there is the injunction in scripture is to pray without ceasing.

You guys have heard that before, right? And I want to be clear that I believe as your pastor that you should be spending time in prayer more than just the prayer that you offer before a meal.

That's a great place to start, by the way, because it's a good reminder. And that's part of a Christian culture that's been passed down from generation to generation.

Pray and thankfulness before a meal. Maybe even like take a moment and infuse that with more than just thanks for the food, but maybe pray for somebody that you know that is hurting.

Or how many of you have ever done this? You've told somebody you pray for them and then forgot about it? Like there's a place for you to put that, by the way.

When we changed the worship folder, we intentionally added that on the back because I find that this is the place in the context where more often

I find myself telling somebody, man, I understand it's a hard thing. And in community we hear where somebody's going through a hard time and we offer to pray for them.

Write it on the back of your worship folder. There's a spot there for you to do that. But we need to have some extended times of prayer, but equally we need to develop a habit of praying throughout the day.

Walking down the hallway to a meeting, on the way to work, in the middle of a meeting, whatever it might be, praying and offering your moment by moment to the

Lord. And prayer is both of those things. But Paul, we see here, was a man who had a deep prayer life and he did not cease to pray for them.

He prayed often for the church in Colossae. So a deep prayer life is what sets the stage, but the content of his prayer here describes for us in clarity the things that make for a life that is pleasing to God.

The text isn't easy to outline. It's very, very difficult to outline actually, because the nature of his prayer that he offers for them, he says,

I pray for you without ceasing and here's the things that I pray. And then his prayer is like a waterfall. He asks for one primary thing and that one primary thing that he's asking of them is composed of two parts of something else.

And the thing that results from this thing that he's praying for them, and praying for ultimately for all

Christians in their lives, is made up of four parts. And then he takes the fourth part and says, here's five motivations for that fourth part.

Anybody lost? Or did you get that? Okay, you're supposed to be lost in that. But let me explain the things as we, and then we'll dig into it.

So let me kind of give you a flow with filling in the words instead of just saying the thing that this is.

Paul prays for the knowledge of the will of God for his church. That is the number one main big picture thing in this text.

The knowledge of the will of God is the number one thing that he says you and I need, that the church needs.

If you're here and you're a part of the church, and by part of the church I mean in with Christ, you've accepted him, you've asked him to be your

Lord and Savior, and you're trying to grow in him, then the number one thing that Paul would be praying for you is the knowledge of his will.

That's where it all starts. But the knowledge of his will is made up of these two components, spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding.

Spiritual understanding is kind of the content type stuff, like you can read God so loved the world that he gave his only son, but then spiritual wisdom is knowing what to do with it.

It's actually taking it a step further and going, okay, I know he died for me. What am I supposed to do with this information?

You know the difference between understanding something and applying it, right? You understand that sometimes you understand something, but you don't know quite what to do with it.

Well, wisdom is the know what to do with it, but then he's also going to take it further than that. Knowing what to do with it isn't always the end either, is it?

Sometimes you know what to do with it and you don't, and so it's this spiritual wisdom, spiritual understanding, and then the knowledge of the of God, if you have that, which is composed of spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding, results in walking in a manner worthy of the

Lord. In other words, a life that is fully pleasing to him. And a life that is pleasing to him has the following four components, he says, bearing fruit, increasing in knowledge, being strengthened in power, and giving thanks to the

Father. And this thanks, this last part, giving thanks to the Father, which is a component of what it means to live a life pleasing to God, he wants us to thank him.

And this thanks comes about in verses 13 through 14 when we realize these five things he has qualified us to share in an inheritance with the saints.

We have been delivered from darkness, we have been transferred to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, we have been redeemed by him, and we have forgiveness of sins.

So you probably didn't get all that in the first run -through, but that sets the stage. That's what outlining this looked like this week, and it's not particularly an easy outline to follow, and yet it packs a significant punch.

And so as we study it, my prayer is that we grab a hold of some of these huge theological concepts and see how they interact with each other, and that we grow as a result of understanding this kind of engine that drives the

Christian life for us. So I hope to break it down so that by the end of our time together this morning, you have a pretty good flow of what the

Christian life is supposed to look like. Remember that this is what Paul is asking for God to do in his church.

This is the way he believes that things should go for you and I. This is prescriptive in a sense.

This is like he's written a prescription for us. This is what he wants to see happen and come to fruition in your life.

This is what he wants to see for each and every person in this room. And he was praying it for the church in Colossae.

He'd never even met him before, and he's like, this is what I'm praying for you. This is what I want for you. And it's significant that he wants us to have these things.

We are in this then seeing a very explicit teaching from God about what it means to please him.

And you've got to ask yourself a genuine question this morning. It's a very easy one to answer in public, right? Kind of flippantly,

I'm not going to ask you to show your hands, but do you want to please God? You've got to ask yourself that and think it through.

Don't just give the first gut level response because in a Christian gathering, of course you want to please God, right? That's what you want everybody to think of you, and we understand that, but do you really want to please him?

Do you want to live in a manner worthy of the Lord? If so, then we have to start here in verse 9 with the knowledge of his will.

Hear that carefully. It's not just generic knowledge. He's not just praying that, boy, you in Colossae, or you here at Recast, I wish that you had more knowledge.

Okay, how many of you'd like that? You'd like to just kind of get a download from God and just get some knowledge. Like that would be kind of cool, but it's not some generic knowledge about creation or how theology works or how the trinity works or something like that.

Not knowledge per se, but knowledge of his will, a specific brand, a specific subject, a specific content to this knowledge.

Now, if you think about it, what does it mean to know someone's will? To know someone's will is to know something very intimate about them, right?

If you know the will of a person, you know their intentions, you know what they want to accomplish, you know what they desire for others and for themselves.

It is to the level of desire and intention to know someone's will. Now, I often assume

I know someone's will only to find out that I've got it wrong. Anybody else in the room married? Okay, you think you know their will, you think you know what they wanted to accomplish, you think you know why they said the things that they said and then come to find out it's completely different intention, completely different will than what you perceive to be the intention of the one who is speaking.

Anybody else got, have you been there? You can raise your hand if you have. Okay, three of us are willing to say that and the rest of you are just locking it down, right?

I see how you're going to be with me this morning. Yeah, this idea of understanding someone's will and if I can get this so wrong with someone that I can see and touch and hear and be present with, how much more open is my relationship to God open to misunderstanding?

Would you agree? It sounds like it's pretty open to misunderstanding. If I can misunderstand the will of my wife, who

I live with and have spent, you know, this last 20 years with, we just celebrated our 20th anniversary and we've spent years together and we've got a good feel for how each other works and we can still misunderstand each other.

Believe me, we can do that from, I don't know, it's probably been two or three years since we did something like that, right?

That was the loudest laugh I heard in the room from way back in the corner. That's my wife. Yeah, she knows.

So if we can misunderstand this, I mean, how open is our relationship to God to misunderstanding?

And that is why it is so valuable that we have the Word of God, a word from Him to us about Him.

This is central. This is key. This cannot be overemphasized, how valuable and rich and important this is to our understanding

His will. People will tell you to go all different kinds of places to find the will of God, right?

One of the things that's really popular right now is just your feelings. Do you have peace about it or not?

What is that, right? What do you mean, peace about it? I can have, I think Eve had peace when she reached out to grab the apple, whatever it was.

She wouldn't have done it if she didn't feel like it was okay or acceptable or kind of like it says in the book, it looked delicious, it looked tasty, so she took it.

She had some kind of pull towards that. How many of you have ever had a pull towards something that you now know was not

God's intention for your life, that it wasn't something that He wanted? It was against His rules, against the desire that He had and it was harmful to you at the time, but you just, you had a pull towards it and you went for it.

You had peace about it. Where do people go to understand the will of God or just some notion, fuzzy sense of love that's out there in our culture?

Well, God is just this all -encompassing, He just, everything is all good and have you heard that in our culture today?

You know, in our culture around you this past week, the past month? People go all different kinds of places to know the will of God, but we have a word from Him where He has told us about Himself and even in our text right here, this is key because it's kind of, kind of cycles back on itself, but even in our text we are discerning something of His will.

We are not left to guess about what a life is like that pleases Him because He tells us right here in this very text what it means to have a life that pleases

Him. We read it, we can study it, we can analyze it, we can apply it.

So how do we grow in the knowledge of God's will? How do we come to know what He wants to happen today, tomorrow, the next day or whatever in our life decisions?

We come to His revelation seeking, according to this text, all spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding.

To know what He desires of us and to know what we should do to apply it and then of course the next step, then apply it.

But in our text when it talks about spiritual wisdom and understanding, they don't double up in Greek words and so spiritual should really modify both words.

It's spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding even though the ESV looks different than that, but spiritual simply means given by the

Spirit. There's a reality in which the Spirit brings to light things in the Word of God that convict, that sharpen us, that correct us.

Have you ever had that happen? Also encouragement as well. It's not just for conviction. Have you ever read the text of Scripture and been encouraged in your heart by the gospel of good news, that He loves you, those kinds of things?

But also we find conviction in here. I'm sometimes deeply convicted as I read and I recognize, man, this thing is like a mirror that reflects back my heart and I'm like, man, there's a lot of crud in here and I can see it as I read the text of Scripture.

And so it's powerful in the way that it's applied and it gives us spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding.

But a person who comes to me and says they just don't know what God wants from them, and some of us have been in that circumstance.

Maybe you feel like you're there right now, but if you come to me and you say that and you're not reading the Bible, it's really like someone who comes to me and says they don't understand their wife but they never listen when she's speaking.

You gotta listen. Of course you aren't going to know what He wants of you.

Of course you aren't going to know anything of His will without coming to the

Word of God. You will not know, have knowledge of His will, if you never come to Him for wisdom and understanding.

And I love that the word wisdom is coupled with understanding here. You see, we should not seek the knowledge of the will of God only for understanding.

We do that a lot in our culture and our society. We love information. Now I personally, if any of you know

Strength Finders, I have input. I could just take in knowledge just for knowledge sake. Like I love learning.

I would love to always be taking a class. I'm always reading multiple books. I just love collecting. Some of you are built that way.

Others of you are like, I studied once when I was in high school and it didn't work for me. I really don't like learning.

And that's, He's created us all different, right? One isn't necessarily better than the other, but at the same time, understanding and knowledge are key.

And so we've got to get, we've got to dig in here and understand the Word of God and seek wisdom from Him.

Trying to figure out, trying to figure Him out, the knowledge of the will of God, only for understanding. And that would be like going to your wife to find out what she wants for Christmas.

This is an illustration that I lost here. Say you go to your wife a few weeks ago and you say, what do you want for Christmas?

And the end result of that is just knowledge, right? That's all you're looking for is just knowledge. Of course not.

You're looking for some kind of application. You're not going to go and ask her that question, like hoping that that question shows up at trivia night at the pub, right?

Can you imagine that? I mean, you go to trivia night, Friday night, they're asking questions and you're just hopeful that they might ask, what does

Linda Filsick want for Christmas? Because then you're going to be able to nail the answer. Is that why you ask that question?

Absolutely not. There's an application and a wisdom that says, I'm asking this question because maybe I'll buy some of the things that she wants, right?

There's a purpose to that and a way to apply it. I'm obviously being facetious to make a point, but wisdom is the application of understanding and both are essential components of truly knowing the will of God.

We need the content of what his ordained principles actually are, but we also need wisdom to apply it in our daily lives.

Both of those are essential components of what it means to have the knowledge of his will. Come to scripture to know the will of God so that you can live it out.

It's study and practice, study and practice, study and practice, an ongoing life course of coming to this in a way of understanding, deeper understanding so that you can live better, deeper understanding so that you can live closer to him.

Study and practice, study and practice, and the beauty to all of this is that part and parcel to knowing the will of God is an understanding of his grace toward us found in Christ.

If you really dig into scripture to know his will, the gospel is on its way to you.

You're going to find it in here. The gospel is not something that has been perpetuated from mouth to mouth, but it's mouth to ear, person to person, but it's something and it certainly does that, but it comes from here.

I think a lot of times we have this mindset that the gospel is just something I heard from someone else, but it's in here.

I met people in North Africa who had never met a Christian in their life and came to trust

Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Why? Because they actually stole, one particular guy stole a

New Testament from his uncle. He was like, he'd never seen one before, and he saw it on his uncle's shelf and it was, we were passing these things out in Spain and people were going over to North Africa with these

Bibles and we were just passing them out and they would, they'd just throw them on their shelf or whatever. This guy is a young kid, now he was in his 30s, but he had stolen a

Bible from his uncle, read it, never met a Christian in his life and said, this is truth, and gave his life to Christ.

It's in here. So if you study and you're working your way through scripture and you're actually pouring over for the knowledge and understanding of who

God is, you're going to come to an understanding of grace. The one who seeks to know

God and his will in scripture will find that his will towards sin is indeed judgment.

His response towards sinners is indeed condemnation. Not a popular message in our culture, it's in here.

You can read it, you can find it, it's all over the place. But his character is such that he has exercised his great mercy and grace in providing a way for sinners to be reconciled to him through his

Son. If we come to be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, then we will come to know the gospel that he has sent his

Son to die for us. And that's a lot in our first verse, but it's so important that we lay out the central things.

I spent more time on that first verse because it's a central thing that Paul wants before we launch out in the rest of the text.

Because the rest of the text is this thing we most often want to abuse, I'm convinced. Paul wants the church in Colossae, and I want

Recast to grow in knowledge, the knowledge of his will, which is wisdom and understanding from his word, so that we can walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord. We must start with the knowledge of his will so that we can be fully pleasing to him.

And it starts with the knowledge of his will, and I would suggest to you that the central component of the knowledge of the will of God, knowing what he desires for each one, is to come under the lordship of Jesus Christ, his

Son. That's what he desires most of you and I. And when you come into that knowledge of his will, then you are empowered to go out by the power of his

Spirit that resides in every believer to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, so that you can indeed be fully pleasing to him.

So many in our culture are leaving out the knowledge of his will. So many skip over verse 9 to get to verses 10 through 12, as if what we believe doesn't matter, but only what we do, and that's becoming more and more prominent in churches today.

And we could be found guilty of missing the knowledge of God's will, of skipping wisdom, skipping spiritual understanding.

And in this, we could skip the good news altogether. And without the good news, a verse 9, verses 10 through 12 sound like bad news.

It sounds like a high, lofty, and unattainable goal. Without the knowledge of the God of grace and his kind and gracious will towards those who are found in Christ, we would be left to ourselves, trying to do these things that we find in verses 10 through 12, to try to please him, instead of from a place of recognizing he is indeed pleased with us because of his

Son. But once we've established that the central goal is the knowledge of the God of grace, as he truly is, then we move on to discuss the results of all spiritual wisdom.

James says it very succinctly compared to Paul. James says, be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Paul's a little bit more verbose than James. He uses words differently. Paul says, seek the knowledge of his will so that you walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord and therefore are pleasing to him. The motivation here explicitly is the pleasure of God.

I hope you see that in the text. Why walk through this life with any rules? Why sacrifice for the sake of your neighbor?

Why give of your hard -earned cash to the work of God? I would suggest to you, the only real true motivation would be because you want to make him smile.

Because you want to live a life worthy of Jesus Christ, who is both King and Savior and died for you.

Now it's important to note that the author of Hebrews makes it clear that without faith it is impossible to please

God. And so faith is a prereq. It's required in order for you to embark on this life.

Faith in Christ is necessary for you to please God. That's the starting point. Without that starting point, all the good that we do is not pleasing to God.

But once in Christ, once empowered by his grace and forgiven of our sins and washed clean, then begins the process of a life that pleases him.

And I want to just suggest to you that the notion that I can bring a smile to his face, that I could give him joy, or as some of the prophets talk about him dancing a jig over us or singing a song of joy over us, that moves me.

That motivates me. That astonishes me. Him pleased with us.

I mean, say that in your mind. Him pleased with me.

Think about that. Him delighted in you. Is that exciting?

Is that motivating? Does that move you? There's something that's so astonishing about that.

And yet, whether for the blindness of my eyes, or the deafness of my ears, or the lack of a preacher proclaiming it,

I don't know what it was about my upbringing. But maybe it's because I lacked the knowledge of his will.

I don't know. But I spent years pretty sure that God was displeased with me. Anybody relate to that?

Years pretty sure that his primary feeling about Don Felsick was anger.

Not pleased. Not delighted. I'm talking about after I was a believer, but something about the way that I processed it.

Something about the way that I thought about it. Maybe I just didn't believe his word. Maybe somebody was preaching it and my ears were deaf to it.

I don't know. I neglected a quest for spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding.

Instead, just ran with my gut regarding God. Pretty common in our culture.

I would suggest to you, maybe pretty common in church culture, where we have a feeling about God and we run with that versus digging in and finding out what he says about himself.

And you can live a life pleasing to God. One that puts a smile on his face and makes him happy with you.

I mean, for some reason, in the way that I was raised, I pretty much assumed everybody knows that God is pretty angry with humanity.

And I could have quoted that God loved us while we were yet sinners, but I figured that must be a stern and angry sort of love.

Know what I mean? But listen up, Recast. As you come to know

God in his grace, through his word, and through his son, you will find that there are things that he does indeed desire of you.

I feel like we can be a little bit light on that here at Recast. A little bit light on talking about the fact that there are things that he wants from you.

I really, I really love to preach grace and I believe grace is the primary component. If we don't get this knowledge of his will found in his son through Jesus Christ and salvation, we get everything wrong.

And so I'm going to lean in that direction routinely and regularly, but there are times when we need to hear that there are things that he wants of you and me.

And in our text, Paul spells out, he's happy to spell out four of those things. And I want you to hear this carefully.

Not things that make him love you more, but things that make him smile. Things that make him pleased.

You get what I'm saying there? How many of you, your children, have had to earn your love?

Boy, that would have been, that would have been worn off really quick after a few dirty diapers, right? Do you know what I'm saying?

Now, how many of you have ever had, those of you with children, your kids have ever made you smile?

Did the smile make you love them more? No, you loved them unconditionally before they made you smile, but how many of you have ever just been cracked up by your kids?

We have. Or done something that just made you joyful and glad and happy. And that's the kind of picture we're looking at here.

Making God smile. We've got to start with faith first. Without faith, it is impossible to please

God. But once we have that foundation of faith and trust in God through his Son, Jesus Christ, for our salvation, then consider this list.

Number one, he wants you to bear the fruit of good works. If you're taking notes, write these four down as I go through them.

And you can draw applications from this. Because this is such a detailed and a flowing kind of stream, it was hard for me to draw applications, but you can in the time that we have.

But he wants you to bear the fruit of good works. He is calling each one of us to be a force of benefit and blessing to the world around us.

Whatever you're calling, whatever your career, your age, your social status, or whatever factors you can come up with that define you,

God has good works for you to accomplish. For each one of us, the good works are going to look different.

Some of you has given the capacity to give with extreme generosity. Some of you is blessed with more discretionary time to be of service and community.

Some of you is gifted relationally to connect with those inside the church and some outside of the church through evangelism.

Some are teachers, some are administrators. There are so many varieties of good works that he has set forward for us.

And for some, the first good work may involve confession of sin and seeking accountability, to begin that process of engaging in battle against some sin that's been owning you.

That's a good work. That's a good thing. God is pleased when his children bear fruit through good works.

He smiles. He's glad when he sees you and I doing good. Second, he is pleased when we increase in the knowledge of him.

There's a pursuit of knowledge that happens. Think about this illustration. When a couple first starts to develop an interest in each other, there's a knowledge that's exchanged, right?

And in those early days of the relationship, you're finding out so much about each other and it's all exciting and finding out each other's favorite color and no way you like that band,

I do too and all of that kind of stuff. But as the years go on, couples who cease to increase in the knowledge of each other often grow cold towards one another.

When you begin to think you've got each other figured out. Have any of you ever been down that road before and it's kind of like, oh yeah,

I'm pretty sure I know how you respond in every circumstance and you begin to label each other and things can get ugly when you go down that road.

You feel like you've got someone else figured out and you cease to grow in the knowledge of them. That relationship can stagnate.

God forbid that that would happen in our relationship with him. He is inexhaustible in his character. The knowledge of God through his own revelation of himself is like a spiral staircase leading ever higher and higher and higher.

With knowledge comes more to know. The more that we know about him, the more there is to know and one commentator said it this way, understanding fuels holiness and holiness fuels understanding and understanding fuels holiness and it's an endless cycle of knowing him, drawing in deeper and closer with him and living a life that pleases him more and more.

And when we continue to seek to understand him and know him better, he's pleased. He smiles.

Third, he's pleased when we are strengthened with the power that he supplies. And that sounds really passive like what can

I do about being strengthened, right? Like you might ask yourself that. Doesn't that sound pretty passive? What control do

I have over this one? Well, it might seem like something that is out of our control at face value but let me suggest that the opposite of this is depending on your own power.

So when you think about it that way, now all of a sudden maybe you can think of some things we could do about it. Do you depend on your own power?

Are you strengthened by the power he supplies? Are you tapping into the might that he has at his disposal?

When we lean upon him in prayer before launching out into our day, he's pleased.

When we credit his power for what has been accomplished in us and through us, he's pleased.

This is so much more than just a mental exercise that I think for some time I went through and it really it's to credit the reality of life to God.

If we have the attitude that I go do the stuff and then pretend that God did it, then we're missing the heart that pleases him because in reality all power is his and all rightful rule is his.

And according to verse 11, his power is granted for our endurance and patience with joy.

When we endure difficulty with patience, that reflects his power and he is pleased. When we're found waiting in the moment for God to act and that moment stretches out, some of us have been there where it feels like okay

I'm waiting on you God and it seems like it's stretching further and further and further but we keep hope and we keep trusting by his strength in that he smiles and is pleased.

When we express joy and difficulty, he is pleased. And lastly, he is pleased when we give thanks.

Last week we talked about thankfulness and I mentioned how I want this to be a year of thanks for me specifically and I hope that that's also the same for the church and Paul here identifies that God is pleased when we give him thanks.

Again, this is like offering recognition where recognition is due. In all things we are to give thanks.

But Paul closes out this prayer by offering five things in case you're uncreative in your thanks and you're kind of rustling and struggling with where to start.

Paul infuses five different things that we should give thanks for and I'm suggesting that as we come to communion, you meditate on and consider these five things.

A life that pleases God, let me summarize where we've been, a life that pleases God starts with knowing his will, with understanding and wisdom, and that knowledge of his will when coupled with wisdom encourages us to walk in a manner worthy of him that pleases him.

And it looks like bearing the fruit of good works, increasing in the knowledge of him, being strengthened with his power, and living a life of gratitude.

And in the event that you don't have many things to be thankful for, let's wrap up with these five things to meditate on and considering during communion.

The first, he has qualified you to share in his inheritance along with his other holy ones.

When someone, think about this word, I love the use of this word here in this text, he qualifies you to share in his inheritance, qualifies.

When someone wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon or the Kona Ironman in Hawaii, they first have to run under a certain time in a qualifying event, a sanctioned race somewhere else.

And last time I checked, I can't ask Jay Weber to go run Chicago for me, and then if he qualifies,

I get to run Boston next year. Is that the way it works? Is that the way it works? Anybody who knows races, is that the way it works?

That's called cheating, yep. I have to run to qualify myself, right?

Isn't that the way it works in our economy, in our method of thinking, the way that we perceive this?

But according to this text, it is God who qualifies you.

God is the one who qualifies you. In our thinking, a person has to qualify themselves.

In God's economy, he is the only one able to qualify you and me. We don't earn a spot on the team?

Can you earn an inheritance? You don't earn an inheritance anyways. He is the standard of qualification, and he gives it to those who are all in with Jesus Christ, and that is the first thing to say, thanks be to God.

The second, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness. We were lost in the dark without wisdom, without understanding, defenseless against the forces of evil.

We were enslaved to sin, and he has rescued us from the reign, the rule, the dominion of sin and evil, and that's the second thing to say, thanks be to God.

Third, he has transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. Not only did he free us from the darkness, the domain of darkness, but he has placed us in the kingdom of light.

We are now in the place where goodness, righteousness, and joyful hope reign, because we are now presently standing in the kingdom of his son.

It may not be fully realized, it may not be fully visible, and will not be fully visible until his return, but the transfer is a done deal, and those with faith in Jesus are bound for eternity with him.

Thanks be to God. Fourth, in Jesus we have redemption. He has set us free from slavery.

He has paid the price to cover our sins, and for many of us, there are a lot of sins.

We're about to take a cup of juice to remember that it was his very blood itself that was the purchase price for our sins.

Thanks be to God. And lastly, fifth, in Jesus we have forgiveness of sins.

Our sins are washed away. They are counted no more. He has removed them as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers them no more, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Thanks be to God. As we close this service with communion, please reflect with thankfulness in your hearts if these things are true of you.

If you've asked Jesus to save you, then feel free to come to one of the tables during this next song, but if you have not asked

Jesus to save you, then please consider what is holding you back from making that decision this morning. I also encourage you to skip communion if that's you.

If you're trying to figure all this out, just take in the song and listen, but I'd encourage you to come and talk with me afterwards about any questions you have about you personally growing in the knowledge of the will of God for you.

Let's pray. Father, you have granted us so many rich things, so many good things.

Through your Son, you have given us forgiveness of sins. You have redeemed us. You have taken us out of the domain of darkness and put us in the kingdom of your beloved

Son. There are so many glorious things that you have given to us, and then we're talking about these great and awesome things, but even our very life and our very breath comes from you.

That we have clothes to wear. We had means to get to church this morning.

We had the ability to survive a night in this cold, wet weather.

You've given us so many good things. We are blessed. Most importantly,

Father, I thank you for the knowledge of your will, that we have your word available to us.

Father, I pray that we would be students of your word, and you give us all different capacities for understanding, all different abilities within the room, but Father, for each one of us,

I'm convinced that you've given us the ability to understand, the ability to gain wisdom from your word, that we might walk in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ, that we might please you as a result of being your children.

So Father, I pray that you would smile down on us this week, that you would catch us bearing the fruit of good works, that you would catch us honoring you, being thankful to you,

Father, that you would catch us honoring Jesus Christ above all this very week.

And as we come to communion, Father, we thank you for the blood that was shed for us, for his body that was broken for us. This is the place of the start of our relationship with you, when we recognize that what we're celebrating here is the real center of our hope, which is

Jesus Christ crucified for us. Him broken in the place that we deserved. Our sins deserved your wrath, and yet you poured out your wrath on him instead of us.

For that we rejoice, recognizing what we deserved and what we get are so different because of Jesus Christ, and it's in his name that I pray.