How to Know God’s Will: A Prayer Worth Praying for Five Weeks
Last summer, Pastor Keith Roberson watched his oldest son graduate. A whole week of festivities — parties, tables to set up, people speaking words over his son about everything he’d accomplished and where he was headed next. And Keith said it felt like one of the best weeks of his entire life, even though he did almost nothing. “All I did was set up the tables for the party,” he admitted. And yet it was one of the most life-giving weeks he could remember.
Years ago, his oldest daughter was in the seventh grade when the high school varsity basketball team came up short on players and pulled her up to play in a varsity game. With seven seconds left, his seventh-grade daughter hit a fifteen-foot jump shot to win it. “I jumped out of my skin,” he said. “I was more excited for her than if it had been for me.”
That’s one of the great pleasures of this life — loving someone so much that watching them flourish makes you happier than if the same thing were happening to you. Wanting the best, the most, the supreme for someone else.
And that, Pastor Keith said, is exactly what the letter to the Colossians is.
In the opening message of the SUPREME series at New River Church, called A Supreme Prayer, Pastor Keith walked through Colossians 1:9-10 — a prayer prayed by a shepherd who longed for people he had never even met to experience the supremacy of Christ and the supreme life that is found in him.
What this sermon is about
Colossians is a letter from the Apostle Paul to a church family in a small town he never visited, written because they were being lulled away from the fullness of life in Jesus by the philosophies swirling around them. Paul’s response is a prayer — and Pastor Keith’s challenge to the church was simple: take this prayer and pray it regularly for the next five weeks. Over your life. Over your home. Over your spouse. Over your children.
Because this prayer answers one of the questions almost all of us are quietly carrying: how do you actually know God’s will for your life? And the answer, it turns out, is bigger and better than most of us have been taught to ask for.
A letter from a shepherd who never met them
Colossae was a small town in Asia Minor, in what is now modern-day Turkey — about a hundred miles inland from Ephesus, right next to Laodicea and Hierapolis. Paul never went there. In all three of his missionary journeys, he never set foot in Colossae. The church was planted by one of his disciples, a man named Epaphras, who had carried the gospel to them. And even though Paul had never seen these people face to face, he carried a shepherd’s heart for them.
Here’s why. They had received the good news that your life can be broken — that you can be lost, in pain, in sadness and misery — and you can be scooped up, ransomed, rescued, washed, cleaned, set free, and given hope. Not just hope for the here and now, but hope eternal. And the world, Pastor Keith said, was like wolves picking at this truth.
Some were wrapping Christianity in rules and rituals: do this, observe that, or you can’t be holy and you can’t be free. Others — the Gnostics — taught that all flesh was evil and salvation came through secret knowledge, so what you did with your body didn’t matter at all. Some explained away the deity of Jesus altogether. Others admitted Christ was good but tried to pull him off the throne: good, but not supreme.
And Pastor Keith pointed out that it’s the same move we still make today. We take some ideas about Jesus we like, and the ones that step on our sexuality or our family or how our heart operates in the culture — those we set aside.
“We get to fashion God. We’ve been doing it from the beginning. We fashion God in our image.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Paul’s answer to all of it was not an argument. It was a prayer. And as Pastor Keith reminded the room, every time a prayer is recorded in Scripture, it’s actually a prophetic picture of what God wants to have with us. It’s a promise. Which means this prayer isn’t just Paul’s — it’s for us.
More than help making good decisions
The prayer begins in verse 9.
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.”
Now here’s where Pastor Keith slowed everything down. This prayer is more than “God, help me make good decisions.” More than “give me some wisdom on where to go or what to do.” When you ask to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, you’re not just asking whether to turn left or right. You’re asking to see the full scope of your life — your past, your present, your future — through God’s sovereign lens. Not the way someone else sees your life. Not even the way your mama sees your life. The way the Father above sees your life.
That includes the broken parts. God, where were you in my darkest moments? Help me see. We’ve all been through something we don’t understand, something that doesn’t make sense. This prayer is the invitation to get access to the Father who has promised to work for our good even through the pain.
It echoes Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:18 — that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” Your heart has eyes, and this prayer asks God to open them — to come in and reframe the entire scope of your life.
Pastor Keith reached for the story almost everyone over a certain age knows: It’s a Wonderful Life. A man convinced his life is empty and meaningless — if only this had gone differently, if only he’d been able to do that — until an angel shows up and says, in effect: you have no idea what you mean to the world around you. You can’t see the meaning of your life in this moment. But I do.
That’s what the Father is offering. Not a fantasy, but his actual words over your actual life — so you don’t get stuck in the muck and the mire thinking your life doesn’t matter.
“This is the most important thing about you — more important than being a mom or dad or husband or wife, more important than anything you will ever do. What does God say about you?” — Pastor Keith Roberson
And in case we’re tempted to think our own read on our lives is good enough, Pastor Keith took the room to Isaiah 55:8-9 — “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Meaning: I’ve got so much greater and more. Come up here to get it. Don’t stay down. Ask me for it.
When you look at the scope of your life from down here, you might be angry, hurt, frustrated, lonely, afraid. But when you come up — when you let God speak his words over you — everything changes.
“Don’t come to church and do church services. Get something real with God.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
The difference between doing religion and meeting with the God whose ways are higher than our ways is the whole difference. He can reintroduce us to the life we were meant to have with him. It’s invitational.
Learning the dance: walking in step with the Spirit
The prayer doesn’t stop with seeing. It moves to walking.
Colossians 1:10 — “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.”
When you get God’s perspective over your life, Pastor Keith said, you start — and here he laughed at himself for saying it — vibing with him. The prayer is: God, grant me a life that is full of joy by being intertwined with you. A life that touches the heart of God and touches the heart of the world around me.
And here’s the part worth sitting with. We get to touch the heart of God not because of our performance — not because we were a good wife or a good husband or a good parent, not because we killed it today. We get to touch the heart of God because he pours out the righteousness of his Son over our lives.
Maybe you’re reading that and thinking what somebody in every room is thinking: you don’t know my life. I’m a mess. I’ve fallen so short. I’ve walked away. I’ve done broken, horrible things. Pastor Keith’s answer was direct: that’s all of our stories. And this is the good news.
“You can exchange every broken thing about you for the perfection of the Son of God.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Not because of your awesome record, but because he has changed you from the inside out. That’s the gospel.
So what does this walk actually look like on a Monday morning? Pastor Keith took the room to Galatians 5:16 — “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” — and then to verse 25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
His picture for it: a dance. Every day, we just get to do the dance. You show up Monday morning and say, God, what do you have to say over me? Can I walk with you today? Can I stay in step with you? When you move forward, I want to move forward. When you move back, I want to move back. When you move to the side, I want to move to the side.
That’s the dance that gives our hearts rest and touches the world around us. And it means the things you put your hand to are not empty. You can do work empty. You can do hobbies empty. You can even do parenting empty — spinning your wheels, unfulfilled. But when you are in step with the Spirit, your life matters, because you’re bringing him into every room you enter.
Pastor Keith put it the way John the Baptist did — the man Jesus called the greatest ever born of a woman: less of me, more of you. “We need less of me,” Keith said. “I need more Jesus. More King Jesus over my life. We all need that.”
The exchange at the end
The sermon closed the way the prayer is meant to work — not as information, but as encounter. Pastor Keith asked everyone to block out the rest of the world for a moment and ask one question: Lord, what do you want to say to me about me right now?
And then a second invitation: hand over any heavy thing. The thing sitting on you like a ton of bricks — brokenness, the past, fear about the future, sin, shame, guilt. Jesus took every heavy thing on the cross. Hand it over as an act of worship, and receive in exchange his glory, fresh mercy, righteousness, and peace.
Then one last ask, the simplest one of all: Can I walk with you tomorrow afternoon?
What this means for your week in Franklin
If you take this sermon seriously, four things change about this week.
- Pray the prayer — regularly, not perfectly. Pastor Keith’s challenge was to pray Colossians 1:9-10 over your life, your home, your spouse, and your kids for the next five weeks. And if you’re a type A who misses a day, don’t quit. Regularly beats perfectly.
- Ask the bigger question. Not just “should I take this job or that one,” but “God, what do you have to say about me, to me?” What he says about you is the most important thing about you — more important than any role you carry.
- Do the dance on Monday morning. Walking in a manner worthy of the Lord isn’t a performance review. It’s staying in step — moving when he moves, all week, in the ordinary stuff.
- Hand over the heavy thing. Whatever has been sitting on you like a ton of bricks, offer it to God as worship and make the exchange: your heaviness for his mercy. You don’t have to carry it into another week.
Watch the full message
The full sermon — “A Supreme Prayer” from the SUPREME series — is in the video above. We post a new message every Sunday from New River Church in Franklin, TN. Browse our message library for more from the SUPREME series and other recent teaching.
Coming Sunday at New River Church in Franklin, TN
If this message resonated and you’d like to experience worship and community in person, we’d love to have you with us. New River Church meets Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM at 1153 Lewisburg Pike in Franklin, TN 37064 — just minutes from downtown Franklin and easy to reach from across Williamson County, Brentwood, and Spring Hill.
You don’t need to dress up. You don’t need a good voice. You don’t need to know much about church or the Bible to come. We’re a community of ordinary people walking through ordinary life, trying to do it together with Jesus at the center. Whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or you’ve never set foot in a church, you are welcome here.
If you’re new to the area or new to faith, our First Time Guest page walks through everything you need to know before your first visit: parking, what to expect on Sunday morning, what your kids will experience in River Kids, and how to find us when you arrive.
If you’re looking for deeper community beyond Sunday morning, our Community Groups meet across Franklin and the surrounding area throughout the week. Groups are where Sunday morning faith becomes Tuesday afternoon real life.
Whatever you’re carrying right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. There’s a place for you at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Come as you are.
Watch more sermons: newriverfranklin.com/messages Plan your visit: newriverfranklin.com/firsttimeguest Find a group: newriverfranklin.com/groups
📍 New River Church | 1153 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, TN 37064 | Sundays 9:00 AM & 10:45 AM
