Knowledge of His Will

- Well, hey, Chapel family! How're we doing today? Good? Great to be with you. Excited to open up God's Word. And so, please do so to Colossians 1. We'll get to that place in just a moment. Colossians 1. We're continuing our series today called "Prayers for the Church." And as I was thinking about prayer and thinking about the kind of prayers that we pray and the kind of prayers that I pray, I wonder if you've ever found yourself in a situation like I find myself in sometimes. And that is where I find myself trying to spiritualize my requests, maybe thinking that will get them through quicker. Just me. Let me give you an example, and then you'll say, "Okay, me too." Maybe it's a mealtime prayer. And so you're sitting down around the table and you're sitting around a table full of Duff's chicken wings, like my family was last night. And you're saying, "Lord, would You please use this to nourish and strengthen our bodies? And just like You multiplied the loaves and fish, I pray that You'd multiply the three nutrients in the one celery stick that I'm gonna eat with the blue cheese, and just strengthen us, Lord, with this beautiful harvest of chicken wings. Have you ever had like that? Like really, we're... Like, we're grateful for it, but let's just be honest, this is just comfort food, all right? And that's an okay thing to be thankful for, but sometimes we try to spiritualized it. Or maybe you're running late, hypothetically, to church, and... That'll work better at 11. Just kidding, 'til the 11 o'clock. You're running late for church. And so you say, "Lord, if there could just be a parking space open near the building, then I would be able to get there and worship you more if I could just get there. And if you could just give me every green light on the way to church, and please allow that state trooper not to see me going nine miles over the speed limit. And Lord, I'd be able to worship You with gladness in the house with His people today, God," right? Or maybe one that's a little closer to home. Lord, if this could just be the year... You already know where I'm going. If Lord, if this could just be the year that the Bills will win a Super Bowl. You're proving my point. Lord, our coach is a Christian. Lord, he loves You. Just honor him, Lord, and bless his faith in You. He's such a good example to our team and our culture and our quarterback even said, "God bless," one time. And so I just, God, this has to be the year, right? Like this is what You want, isn't it? You know? And so I'm using some lighter examples, but I think we do this with other things too, right? And we think that if we maybe spiritualized or just turn it a little bit and it doesn't feel quite as selfish if we pray this thing. And now I wanna remind us, we bring all of our requests to God. And so please keep doing that. Maybe even especially that last example. But as Pastor Jerry mentioned last Sunday, even the small things matter to God because you matter to God. So don't stop doing that. As a dad, I love when my kids ask me for things, even if they're outlandish and absurd and I'm not gonna do them, but I'm happy that they come to me. And so don't stop doing that. But I wonder if maybe we can mature our praying as we grow in the faith. You know, right before our worship service started, I was backstage, and there were a few gentlemen from our church praying, for today, for right now, for you, for all of us. And for me, as I would speak. And though he would've no way of knowing this, one of the gentlemen praying, Rob started his prayer by saying, "God, what prayer do You want today?" And I told Rob after, there's no way you could have known that this is exactly how I intended to begin. Where we would actually maybe ask different questions even of our praying. What a profound question that is. "God, what prayer do You want?" If we're honest, I wonder how much of our praying sometimes, sometimes sounds more like "Thy will be changed" rather than "Thy will be done." Now, we don't have to wonder what it looks like to pray the kind of prayers that receive what God wants. We don't have to wonder what that's gonna look like. Because, in fact, the passage that we're gonna look at together today in Colossians is going to show us, from the writing of Paul again, an example of what it means to receive what God wants. Not only to use prayer to let Him know what we want. We should keep doing that. He welcomes it. He instructs it. He invites it. Make all your requests to God. We should. And there is also a dimension of prayer. I think this is where we can grow and mature together, in that we would receive what God wants, not just tell Him what we want. And so if you have your place in Colossians 1, I wanna show you how Paul begins in verse 9 of our text, which we're gonna go through for verse 12 and a few moments. But for now, just verse 9 and the beginning of 10. "For this reason," Paul says, "Since the day we heard about you, we've not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way." The main idea for this passage, for our message, for our conversation today and as we leave from this place is this that Paul prays "To know God's will so that you live a life that pleases God." This is the prayer. Paul prays to know God's will so that you and I, we will live lives that please God. Notice that he starts this section by saying, for this reason. In the beginning of the series, we were in Ephesians 1, and I showed you that passage began very similarly, for this reason. So Paul is telling the Colossians now the reason he's praying. Well, he already told them in the earlier part of his letter, look at verses 3 and 4, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people." So he heard about their love and their faith. Again, that's a similar theme as well to the book of Ephesians. But I think it's interesting that Paul says, "For this reason we're praying." Well, what was the reason? He had heard about their faith and their love, that they were growing in these things and that had spread throughout the region. But I find this instructive. I find this interesting. Because Paul isn't praying because there's a problem, he's praying because there isn't one. How much of our praying, often, is triggered by a problem? And by the way, that's a right reflex. When we find ourselves in need, the best place for us to be is in prayer. But I think if we were really honest, we would admit that sometimes that is the dominant form of our prayer. When there's a problem. When there's a need. When we feel like we don't know what to do, and not when there's not a problem. But Paul gives us a great reason and a great example here of praying when there's no problem. In fact, praying when there's something good, he says, "I've heard about your faith and love and for that reason I'm praying for you." I'm praying for you, Colossians, not because you're... It's not like he could hear about their faith and their love and be like, "Okay, good, they don't need me today." 'Cause Corinth has their own problems, so I'm gonna focus on praying for them, right? It's not what he does. He prays all the more earnestly for them. In fact, did you notice that? He says, "We have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you." He keeps on praying, just like he says to the Ephesians, it's a similar pattern. But notice again in verse 9 what he says here, "We continually ask God," what does he ask? "To fill you with the knowledge of His will. To fill you with the knowledge of His will." That word means filled to completeness, to the brim. Not half-full, half-empty kind of thing, but filled to the brim with the knowledge of God's will. He wants this. He says, "This is something that I'm praying for you to know God's will." In other words, through and through. That this knowledge would fill you through and through to the very, to all of you, all of you Colossian believers. Well, how will God fill you with the knowledge of His will? Well, let's look again at 9. "We continually to ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives." How's God gonna fill these Colossians with the knowledge of His will? Paul says he's asking that he would do this through all the wisdom and the understanding that the Spirit gives. Well, why do we need that to happen? Well, because we can't get to God's will on our own, in our natural state, in our lives before Christ. We cannot discover what God wants for us in totality. In our natural state, in fact, we are hostile to God, not interested in His ways, and aren't even looking for them. And we're not even looking for them. So therefore, we can't even find them. We can't get there on our own. In fact, Paul says something similar. If we were to look at one place in 1 Corinthians 2, look at verses 12 and 14, it's on the screen. It says, "What we've received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given to us." And then verse 14, "The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness, and can't understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." So think of your life. For those of you that came to faith in Christ, maybe in your adult years or later teen years, think of what your life was like before Christ. And think of how you viewed Christians then. What did you think of the way that Christians lived their lives? You thought it was foolish. Why would anybody choose to live that way, believing in some God that they just call out to, right? I mean, you had all the lines, you had all the jabs, you had all the jokes, and you had all the stingers that for your, you know, religious sibling at Christmas who told you about their faith and you knew exactly how to shut them down and shut them up because you thought their life was foolish, right? And then something changed. Well, what happened? Did the light bulb just go on for you? Because maybe you're like exceptional. Sorry to say, no, that was from the Spirit of God. Because 'til that point in time, the person without the Spirit can't accept the things of God and considers them foolishness. So they can't possibly understand why anybody would live that way. But with the Spirit now, all of that changes for you. Well, what does the Spirit give to make that happen? Paul says two things. He says, wisdom and understanding. The Spirit gives wisdom. That is the Greek word Sophia. It's where we get our word sophomore, which is a wise moron quite literally, right? Which, if I think about myself at 15, perfect, like that's a perfect description, right? But Sophia is that Greek term for wisdom. And what that means is kind of like what we could call first principles or foundational truths, right? Like, this is how the world works in God's economy. And then understanding is a Greek term that means to set aside, beside, excuse me, to set beside or to put together. So if we take these terms and understand what Paul's saying here in this letter, what the spirit does is he takes the wisdom of God and sets it beside life circumstances so that you know what decision to make. What the Spirit of God does in filling you with the knowledge of His will is He gives you an understanding of what God desires. And He places that beside a real-world circumstance so that you know what to do in order to live a life that's worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. This is what the Spirit of God does. But why is this necessary? Why do we need the Spirit to give us this wisdom, this understanding? Look again at verse 10, the first part. "So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way." This is the target. "To live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every single way." Or I might suggest we live a life worthy of the Lord by pleasing Him. These are not separate activities. We live a life worthy of the Lord by pleasing Him in every way. And so with this wisdom, in this understanding, we are to have an output that looks different from how our lives would look without Jesus. There ought to be a marked difference, distinctiveness, in how we live. And he calls it this worthy life. Well, why or what would that entail? How would we describe this? Well, I would just suggest to you because he says worthy of the Lord, he's talking about Jesus. This is Paul's favorite title for Jesus is Lord, kurios, in the New Testament. And so what would it mean for it to be worthy of the Lord? Well, I would just put it like this. Worthy lives reflect the worthy one. Worthy lives reflect the worthy one. Because on this earth, Jesus made it His aim to please the Father in everything He did. In John 8:29, He even says, "The one who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him." I always do what pleases the Father. This is Jesus speaking. And guess what? He did it. And how do we know that? Because the Father was pleased. Look at Matthew 3:17. "And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.'" So Jesus lived this worthy life. His life had worth. And by definition, that worthy life in the Lord was one that pleased the Father. And the Father said, He did, He validated it. So what do we make of this idea for our lives? Well, this word for worthy comes from a Greek word that references a scale, not like the one that we step on at the gym and you know, move the little sliders over, right? But similarly, maybe a picture of an like a more traditional scale would help us, where you have these two bowls on either side. And the idea is for these to be equal in weight. And so if we would imagine that here's the example of the Lord on this side of the scale, what we are to do is to live lives that are worthy of the Lord. So that means that our choices, our words, our decisions, the totality of our life should add up to the worth of the one who paid for our lives. Now, before we run ahead, and I'm gonna get to a place later on in this message where we will guard ourselves from self-righteousness and works-based righteousness and thinking that we can do this in our own power. So don't run ahead and say, "Well, I gotta just try harder, and I gotta hunker down, and I gotta really just work for it." No, because it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That now the worthy one is living His worthy life out through you. But you're gonna be participating in that and you are invited into that and your daily decisions and your thoughts and your patterns and your behaviors and your attitudes all work towards, are you participating in the worthy one, living His worthy life out through you? Are you or are you not participating in that? So the idea is because, look, we've all made choices. We've all lived in such a way. We've all said things that were just worthless. Empty words, empty decisions, empty promises. We've all done those things, all of us. And we recognized, man, there was just, there was no substance to that decision, that place I went, that relationship I was in, that job I took, that was all. It was just empty. But if you think of the greatest decisions, the greatest moments, the greatest things that define you, I would venture to say you would describe them this way. They were all worth it. Maybe getting that degree, maybe starting that business, carrying that child and delivering that child and holding that child, run even smaller things, maybe that like running that half marathon or completing that, whatever it might have been, you would probably say it was worth it. Well, what do you mean? It wasn't the easiest path, but it led to the best destination. And worthy things, worthy lives are not going to be on the easiest path, but they will always lead to the best destination. The way is narrow, the terrain is difficult. In this life, you will have trouble. But take heart, Jesus said, "I've overcome the world." So this idea of worth means that our worthy choices make for worthy lives that reflect the worthy one. And this all adds up to please God. He is pleased by this. Now, in our Bibles, in the NIV, or if you're reading the ESV, at least, too, there's a colon actually after the phrase and pleasing Him in every way or pleasing to Him. And that's helpful because what follows that colon is a description from Paul of what a worthy life that pleases God will look like. So look again here at verses 10 and 11 in our text. It says, "So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience." So he lists four evidences of a life that is worthy and pleasing. So if we were gonna ask the question, okay, what evidence is there of a worthy and pleasing life? How would this appear? If it was genuine, how would it show up in your life and in mine? Paul gives four things. He says, first, bearing fruit in every good work. That's right outta the text. Bearing fruit in every good work. Now, what I believe Paul means here is good deeds that have a view toward eternity. Because there is a fruitfulness in these good deeds, these good works, that is not true of every person who just does good deeds, because everybody's, maybe not everybody. Okay, a lot of people are trying to do good things. A lot of people are trying to do good deeds. Everybody from the Boy Scouts to the Baha'i, they're all trying to do good things and hand out cups of cold water. So what is distinct about the people of God who live worthy lives that are pleasing to Him? There is a spiritual fruitfulness that comes from the work that they're engaged in. So when we say here at The Chapel that we exist to ensure that every man, woman, and child has repeated opportunities to hear and say it, see the gospel, you understand the hearing part maybe more naturally when you think about, yeah, hearing the gospel, that's the preaching of the message of Jesus. But what about the seeing the gospel? What about when you aren't given an opportunity to share in words? You keep looking for those opportunities, but while you wait, you commit to living the gospel so that others may see it. Because perhaps by seeing it in you over periods of time, decades of faithfulness, and as you keep looking for those opportunities to share the why behind the what, God may use your living the gospel to open up doors of opportunity for you to speak the gospel. I've seen it happen. And so bearing fruit in every good work would look like good deeds with an eye towards eternity that are participating in God's mission. But there's a second evidence and it's growing in the knowledge of God. Growing in the knowledge of God. Or maybe if you wanna say, growing in knowing Him, that's a callback to week one of this series for those of you that were with us. We know God better as we live for Him. There is a nearness, a closeness, a proximity of relationship that we discover the more we live in accordance with His will. He doesn't love us more. Oh, these are my favorites over here. He doesn't deprive us of His love when we disobey, but the face of His love does turn when we obey Him. We were talking about this with our kids, maybe last Saturday, a week could ago Saturday, about disobedience and obedience. We just keep having to have that same conversation at dinner. Hey, guys, let's reset. We're your parents, hi, it's nice to meet you. We are actually in charge. And we love you, and we want what's best for you. And we were talking about that and I said to our kids, our kids are seven and 11 and hey, have you ever heard me say, if you clean your room, we'll be able to go to the movies later? Or if you clean up the absolute wake of destruction that you left in the front hall of our home when you got off the bus today, like the shoes are over here, the backpacks are over there, there's paper everywhere. You don't know where your water bottle is. I see three in the foyer, right? If you clean that all up, we'll have time to play a family game before bed. And I gave a warning at this time, and a warning at this time and an encouragement at this time and a even offer to help at this time. And now, it's 7:30, and you're crying that we can't play the family game. But there is a whole bunch of stuff that hasn't been done. You blew me off. You disregarded what me and your mom were telling you for the last three or four hours. So when you disobey, do I love you less? And they know enough to say, "No, you love us the same." Yes. But when you obey, do you get to experience my love differently because we can actually have time together, instead of go clean your room for the 18th time? Yeah. Those moments are sweet and we had the same conversation the next day, but it doesn't matter, because in that moment, me and my wife were like, "That was great." We're crushing it, you know, it's like... No, we had the same conversation. And here's the thing about how that relates to us and the Lord is do... Oh, and I even asked our kids, do you stop being my son or my daughter when you disobey? No, your status as his child never changes because of Christ. You're in Him. And that relationship's unchanging between the Son and the Father. So growing in knowing Him looks like getting to experience a dimension of the Father's love that we just are so busy wasting time with making messes in our room and in the hallway that we don't have time to sit and enjoy this time with Him, 'cause we're too busy cleaning up the messes or delaying cleaning up the messes. He says, "I wanna sit with you. I wanna draw you closer. I've got so much more for you. And I don't love you any less." But there's a different dimension of our relationship that you haven't experienced until you obey. And that's what it means to grow in knowing Him, I think. The third evidence is that we are strengthened with all power. Again, right outta the text being strengthened with all power. He says, "According to His glorious might," this is such a comfort to me. God enables us to do all that He desires for us to do. God enables us to do all that He desires for us to do. There is no command He gives that He doesn't also supply the power to obey. This is where our analogy between us and our kids breaks down. Because I can only do so much for them. I can only do so much through them, right? Because we're both finite. But think about this. The Father strengthens you with all power according to His power, not according to your capacity. He says being strengthened with all power according to your past, thank God. Being strengthened with all power according to your abilities. I'm super thankful that's not what it says. Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. And we've talked in this series about His power, haven't we? So think about that power and recall, it's not on the screen, but recall the Apostle Peter's words in 2 Peter 1, where he says, "His divine power has given us everything we need to live a godly life." It's everything we're hearing here in Colossians 1 that you're being strengthened with all of this power to live a life worthy of the Lord that is pleasing to Him. And then a fourth evidence is having great endurance and patience. Having great endurance and patience. The word for endurance means to remain under, to stay under, specifically, a like a pressing or a trying circumstance to remain under it. Or like we heard last Sunday, to stand, to remain standing in Ephesians 6. It's the same concept. Endurance means to remain under. And patience comes from a word that means to suffer long. And specifically with people. That not just patience like I'm holding my tongue but I'm suffering with this person. And maybe it's because of this person, but suffering long means your ability to remain where you are and not punch out. So putting all of this together that you and I would have great endurance and patience means that as you live a life worthy of the Lord that is pleasing to Him, there is no situation and there is no person who can throw you off that track. Because you've got the power of His might working in you, because you've got the Spirit giving you the knowledge of His will, because you're bearing fruit as you go and you're growing closer to Him as you do. There's no person, there's no situation that can defeat you living a life that is worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. There's nothing. You're gonna be able to stay standing, even in the day of testing, even in the day of trial. Isn't that such good news for us? So where does this all lead? Well, verse 12. "And giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light." Giving joyful thanks to the Father. Now, you could, maybe your translation connects joy in the previous verse with endurance and patience, and it really could work either way. But the truth is, for all of us, joy is the centerpiece for living lives that are worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. And the reason for that is because there is no stoicism in Christianity. This guards us from a cold, dead orthodoxy, because we're not just living for God and you know, gritting our teeth and bearing it. But all of this adds up to giving joyful thanks to God that we would be able to live like this for Him leads to our joy. Maybe I could put it this way. "If we live for God's pleasure, it will lead to our joy." Have you ever considered this as a possibility that God is actually after your joy, but He wants you to have joy. It's just not gonna come through the channels, you probably think it will. Because all of us have, at one point or another, lived for our own pleasure for self. And we thought if we did that, it would lead to our joy and it doesn't work. It might last for a little while, but it doesn't last forever. And so maybe you think, "Well, I just have to try harder to live for myself, for my own pleasure. That's what's missing. I just haven't had enough experiences yet. So I need to put more money into that pursuit or more time into that pursuit, or I need to change everything and go over here." And all you're doing is just swapping out different pursuits of pleasure, but they're all revolving around you, and you think that it's gonna lead to your joy. It doesn't. So in you're frustrated, you try to do a different thing. How about just resetting? If we live for God's pleasure to please Him, it will lead to our joy. He's after your joy. Living for self will not do it. It doesn't work. But instead, when we do what we've read about today, when we live these worthy lives, it leads us to give joy, give thanks joyfully. Because, as he says, the Father who has qualified you to share in His inheritance, listen, it's amazing, after talking about all of this, what a worthy life looks like. It's like Paul wants to remind us, but none of your decisions actually qualify you to be in His family. You can't work your way in to His good graces. So this is all necessary and right, but just as a reminder, it's the Father who made you fit for this occasion. It's the Father who qualified you to even be in His family. So it guards us automatically from thinking, "Well, I've just gotta, just gotta try harder and pull myself up by my bootstraps and just really get serious." Okay. But if you think that you can earn your way in, you will never be able to do it. It's the Father who qualifies you. As Paul says here, "So give joyful thanks to Him because it's all about Him." It's all Him. 'Cause it's the Spirit who gave you wisdom and understanding. It's God who filled you with the knowledge of His will. It's God who produced that fruit in your good deeds. It's God who drew you closer every day, allowed you to grow in that knowledge of Him. It's God who strengthened you with His power. It's God who gave you that endurance and patience. It's God who qualified you to share in His inheritance. It's all about Him. So thank Him. Joyfully. No, no stoicism here. No dead orthodoxy here. Only joy. Because of where we would be if not for Him. So how do we apply this? I have three questions for us to ask of ourselves. Questions I've been asking me and now I wanna ask you. "Do you spend more time asking God for His will or asking Him to accomplish yours?" Do you spend more time? Do I spend more time asking God for His will or asking Him to accomplish mine? Don't stop bringing your requests. Did you hear that clearly today? Don't stop bringing your requests. All I'm asking is for you and I to consider, what space did we leave this week? Just go over the prayers of the previous seven days. What space did you leave for God to fill you with the knowledge of His will? Because prayer is not a monologue, it's not. It's a conversational relationship with your heavenly Father, and with your open Bible that you read daily, as you offer up prayers and make your requests as you should. Do you leave any room for prayer in agreement with Jesus who said, who prayed, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done? Is there room in your prayer life right now for any nevertheless, not my will? Is there any room? Do we spend more time asking God for His will, or asking Him to accomplish ours? A second question for us would be, "Are you obeying what has already been revealed as God's will while you wait for what hasn't been revealed?" Are you obeying what's clear while you wait for what's unclear? Keep praying. Lord, would You fill me with the knowledge of Your will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives? And while I wait for that, how do you fill in that blank? Now what's important for us to understand is that God's will can be known. There'd be no sense in me telling you to pray this prayer if it couldn't happen. And the mere fact that this is included in our New Testaments, that this was preserved, tells me that this is something God wants us to know and pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of His will. So that's great news. We don't have to be wandering around like confused all the time, like never sure of what to do, like waffling between everything. Like no, we can have some certainty here. But I know that like me, you've asked God for some particular things that you want, you want to know His will in. So in those unclear matters, the first question underneath that is, well, did you really ask Him? Did you actually ask Him? Well, yeah, I pray all the time about, well, hold on. Did you ask Him? Because I hear people tell me a lot. Yeah, I pray all the time. And what that really means when I press in is I worry about it a lot. I think about it a lot. Okay, the next step would be, "Lord, what should I do?" Did you ask Him? Have you actually articulated, "I need You," 'cause we sang, "I depend on You," do we? But if we've asked Him and we haven't gotten the answer yet, my second sub-question to this is, "Are you obeying what's already clear?" Because you could do a simple word study in the New Testament of all the places that it says explicitly this is God's will for you. And there are some of those things. Are you doing those? Well, I just really wanna know what I should do about my job. Or well, okay, hold on. Are you doing these things? 'Cause these are very, very clear. This is like not even debatable, but I really want to, okay, great, we'll get to that. But are you doing this? Start here. Are you obeying what has already been revealed as God's will while you wait for what hasn't been revealed just yet? And then a third question is, "Is God's delight your greatest pursuit? Is God's delight your greatest pursuit?" Maybe you grew up in a an environment where, whether religious or not, you believed some version of God hates when we have fun. And even if we did what He wanted, He wouldn't really be happy. He would just say, "Okay, good, like you were supposed to." Maybe your thought process was something like, God's favorite word is don't. Or in the King James, "Thou shalt not." And that even if you could do the things God told you to do, you wouldn't a response of delight, but more like a begrudging acceptance. This text today flies in the face of those lies because to live a life worthy of the Lord pleases Him. He takes delight in you, His child, living life His way because He knows that living life His way will lead to greater joy for you. And so we have to say, which version do we really believe, the caricature or the truth? The idea that God is just angry all the time, waiting for you to mess up so He can just light you on fire right there. Or the idea of a Father whose heart breaks when His children don't listen to Him, but whose heart rejoices when they do what He says, who can't wait to scoop them up and say, "That was the right, that was the right choice." And if we, who are so sinful, know what that feels like, those of us that are parents, know just even the echo of that, imagine what it looks like on a heavenly scale for our perfect Father, who sees all and knows way more than I know for my kids. He knows everything. Imagine His delight, unencumbered by all the things that it's limited to in my finite form. His delight overflows because there is so much rejoicing in the presence of the angels when one sinner comes to repentance. But you know that's not about the angels, it's about who's in the presence of the angels. God is. He's rejoicing when you turn from your sin. He's delighted when you live His way because He knows that is what is best. Man. And if you make that your pursuit, it will change everything that we should try to find out. Lord, what's gonna please You today? Paul even tells the Ephesians in Ephesians 5, "Find out what pleases the Lord." Isn't that so simple? "Find out what pleases the Lord." Keep finding it out. Keep studying it, keep praying for it. Keep discussing it with your community group. Keep going over it with your friends. Keep asking Him, "Lord, what will please You today, where I am? And you'll discover that God's will is not so much about which job, which spouse, which house, which car, but where you are. Are you living for His delight? And then you'll say, "You could put me anywhere, you can drop me into any situation. You could put me into any workplace, any neighborhood. And I'm gonna make sure that I'm bearing fruit in good work here because I'm strengthened by the power that You've provided to me, that You're giving me endurance and patience to stand up under all of this for You Lord. And that I'm gonna be able to give You joyful thanks when all is said and done because it was all You in the first place." So to summarize. "Know His will. Walk His way. Know His will. Walk His way." We're gonna take a moment to pray and reflect and at all of our campuses, we're gonna have a few moments to reflect on a few prayer prompts that will be on the screen. And I want you to take some minutes right where you are. This is gonna require you to think and reflect on these prayer prompts. 'Cause there's some gaps that we've put here for you to fill in as you pray and talk to God yourself. Because we shouldn't just rush past this text. We should allow for God to speak to us. So we're gonna take time to do that. And at every one of our campuses, our teams will come back up to wrap up and dismiss. So take time to pray even now, and follow along with us on the screen. You just remain in a posture of prayer for a moment. Or if you're not already, bow your heads with me. And if you're here today and you don't know God personally through Jesus, the beginning point would be a turning from the old life and turning to Him. The Bible says that without faith, it's impossible to please God. So if you've been living a life on your own, not a life of faith in Christ, you can never even get to this place to even experience the delight we've been talking about. But the door is open to you, the invitation is yours because today, if you hear God speaking to you and drawing to you, then respond to that. That's not me, that's not my words, that's not anything that had to do with our worship service today that's because God wants to get your attention. He sees you, and He wants to draw you to Himself. And so, right now, I want to invite our prayer team to come to the front of the room because when we dismiss in just a moment, there'll be men and women down front who would be be so delighted to pray with you and for you if you need Jesus. When I say amen and dismiss us, you come down and introduce yourself to one of our prayer team and they'd be happy to take it from there, pray with you, talk with you about what it means to know and follow God. So Lord, I thank You so much that You have revealed Yourself in Your Word. Your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Thank You that we can follow You with confidence and certainty, even when we don't know the future, even when there are things that are unclear. We know exactly what step to take next because You ask us to follow You by faith, not by sight. So I pray that we would walk in step with Your Spirit, that You would fill each and every one of us here today with the knowledge of Your will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that us here, the body of Christ known as the Chapel, may live lives worthy of You, Lord, and please You in everything. And when we see that, as we see that, we will give You thanks, and it's in Christ's name, we pray all of this. Amen.