Paul’s Prayer for You — Filled with God’s Purpose

Welcome to the Southwest Apostolic Church podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by the Southwest Apostolic Church,

located at 3161 South Rowena Street in Indianapolis, Indiana, 46241.

The podcast will feature preaching

from our pastor and from other ministers, so we hope you enjoy it.

Without further ado, let's get right into it. God bless.

First chapter, Colossians. Paul wrote a letter to the church at Coloss.

And so let's go there tonight. A few minutes.

Praise the Lord. Colossians 1 and 9. Start at 9.

Appreciate everybody here tonight. Good to see James here tonight. I'm glad he came.

Amen. Jerry, good to see you back tonight too. Amen, everybody. Amen.

All right. Paul writes to the church at Colossus, and he says,

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you,

and to desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will,

in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing,

being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God,

but strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power,

unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness,

giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet or worthy to be partakers.

Of the inheritance of the saints in light. Amen.

And our thought tonight is Paul's prayer for you.

For you. Praise God. You may be seated.

When I say Paul's prayer for us, for you, when he's writing to the church here, the Colossian church.

So if he's writing to the Colossians church and he's praying for them along

these lines, that means he's praying for all of us. Amen.

By extension, that would apply to every one of us. Amen.

So let's look and see what he prayed about. Let me came to my mind first thing.

Everything he said was good.

When he prayed for them, he wasn't praying fire down on them.

He wasn't praying that the Lord would punish them.

He was praying everything he prayed was good. Amen.

Everything he asked for, everything he said he wanted for them was good.

And can I tell you tonight, one thing about Jesus, he wants good for everybody.

I said he wants good for everybody. It's all good with him. It's nothing.

He's not, he's not, But I just say it like that. It's all good. Praise the Lord.

Paul's prayer for you. Let's look at it. Start with.

For this reason or for this cause, he says, from the day that we heard of it, we heard.

If you go verse or two before, he said, we learned a prepress,

our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister,

who's declared unto us your love in the spirit. it.

So he gets a good report from his fellow worker, and he gives him a good report.

And he says, well, since I've heard that, he said, I want to keep praying for

you. I want to pray for you.

And I want you to, first thing he says, I want you to be full of the knowledge

of his will. I like this as.

Let's see. The Bible in basic English says it like this.

For this reason, we from the day we had word of it, keep on in prayer for you

that you may be full of the knowledge of his purpose.

You know, a lot of people going around the day and world and life,

and they don't have any idea what their purpose is.

I was listening to an interview the other day, and they were saying one of the

main things for people to find, to be in good health is to find out what their purpose is.

And I was reading in the book that said that when a person finds out what their

purpose is, and they even went so far as to say that people acted in certain

ways to give themselves a purpose.

They don't know what their purpose is, so they find something and latch on to

it, like loving trees or saving owls or something else. They latch on to something to give themselves.

Everybody wants to feel like they have a purpose, don't they?

And I'm glad tonight God has a purpose, too. And you know what that purpose

is? The redemption of humanity.

God's purpose is that we might be saved and we might be delivered and get ahead

of myself, but we might be what God wants us to be and be what we want to be, too. Somebody say amen.

Amen. Praise the Lord. So the knowledge of his purpose.

Paul says, I want you to know what the knowledge, the knowledge of his purpose.

I want you to have an understanding of what God's purpose is.

Not the devil's purpose, but what's God's purpose?

God, the Bible says that he came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. Amen.

He came that somebody might be delivered.

And he came, the Bible says he came to seek and, let's see, how's it go? My mind, let's see.

Seek and to save that which is lost. And he came to destroy the works of the devil.

So when that baby, when we sing those Christmas songs, that wasn't just a pretty

little song. That wasn't just some little nice story.

He came to destroy the works of the devil.

Amen. How many knows the devil's working overtime?

He's working overtime. Praise the Lord. So I want you to understand.

I want you to know. I want you to know what the knowledge. I want you to understand.

I want you to have full discernment of what God's purpose is.

You see, he's not here. Jesus said it like this. He said, I didn't come into the world.

God gave his only begotten son. Whosoever believeth on him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.

He said, I didn't come into the world to condemn the world.

He didn't send him that the world would be condemned.

He said, but that the world through him might be saved.

I'm going to tell you something. It's God's will for people to be saved.

And I don't care who they are, where they've been, what they've done either.

I said, it's the will of God for people to be saved.

Amen. It's the devil that tells people they can't be saved. And it's the devil

that tells people, you know, things that I've heard.

I've gone too much. I've gone too far. I'm going to tell you,

that's a lie from the pit.

Somebody say, man, I said, somebody say, man, God wants people to be saved.

That's what, that's his purpose.

And we need to fall in line with his purpose and make sure we're saved and see

if we can help somebody else get saved. Amen.

I want to see somebody get delivered, don't you?

I want to see somebody get what God's got for them. Praise the Lord.

And I want them to have that recognition.

I want their minds to be open. I want them to be able to see what God wants

for them. Praise the Lord.

Their minds, the Bible says, if the gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost.

And the God of this world has blinded their minds. They don't see. They don't understand.

But Paul's saying, I'm praying for you, church, that you have an understanding,

that you'd be enlightened, and then you'd know what the plan of God is and what

His purpose is. Praise the Lord.

So you can go out and do and be what God wants you to be and be a force for

good in the world. Praise the Lord.

I said be a force for good in the world.

Praise the Lord. Understand that the devil's a liar and the Father of it.

Praise God. Full discernment.

I want you to have full discernment. I want you to that you may be filled with

the knowledge of His will. I want you to be full of it.

I want you to understand. I want you to get it down inside of you that if God

saves you and calls you into His church,

He's got a purpose for you, and His purpose is to work all things according

to His will, that somebody might get in the church,

somebody might get saved, somebody might get delivered somebody might get what

they need would somebody clap your hands or do something tonight praise the Lord,

Praise the Lord, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will. Praise God.

You say, why is it important to be full of the knowledge of his will?

Because if you don't, it's just like this. It's like saying you need to know the truth.

You need to know the truth. Why is God, why is the church here?

Why is God, why is there a church?

Why did he die on the old rugged cross? Why do we see the example of his amazing

grace? All those things that we sing about. We need to have a deep understanding.

And see, people get all sidetracked. They build their kingdoms.

There's man-made religions, you know. There's ministries that are self-centered.

But I want you to know, we need to get up under his purpose. Amen.

And understand what his purpose is and be full of it. Praise God.

Full of that understanding what it is.

Praise God. Because it's for good. I said, it's for good. It's not for bad. It's for good.

Okay. The knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

With all wisdom and experience of the Spirit.

God wants you to have an experience with Him in the Spirit that you would be full of the wisdom.

You see, the wisdom and the spiritual understanding comes from the Spirit of God.

That's why we need the Holy Ghost when we come to church. That's why somebody

said, do I need the Holy Ghost to be saved?

The old-timers said, you need the Holy Ghost to go to Walmart in today's world.

But we need to have the Spirit of God moving. Come on, somebody.

Let me just say it. And you know what? In the apostolic service,

the altar is always open.

Don't wait for me to get done. If you want something from God,

come on and get it. Somebody say, man, because that's his purpose. That's his purpose.

You know, if somebody wanted to come out and pray, we wouldn't want to shut

him down because that's exactly what God wants.

I said, that's just exactly what God, oh, we can't have prayer.

We can't have an altar call right now because we've got a couple more songs

to do. Now we need to put our songs aside and let the will of God be done.

Amen. Let God do what he wants to, when he wants to, fulfill his purpose.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.

I said, when he wants to, do what he wants to do. And let me tell you,

God will do what he wants to do if we'll let him. Amen.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise God.

Okay. Filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom, walk in wisdom of his will.

In other words, you know, have a little wisdom about yourself.

Have an understanding of his purpose and have a spiritual understanding, not carnal, not carnal.

We're not worried. We're not supposed to have a carnal understanding.

We're supposed to have a spiritual understanding.

Praise the Lord. Something that's from above.

We're supposed to have an understanding of, and see, that's the thing.

This is going so many different directions so fast.

I want to tell you something. When you come to the house of God and you learn

and you get into God's Word and you hear about the Word of God,

you are getting into deep waters, my friend.

You are not hooked up with something that doesn't matter. You are hooked up

with something that is being done according to the knowledge and the power of God.

Praise the lord you are involved in what god is

doing praise the lord this is of god john

told the church he said ye are of god little children let

me tell you the world might look at it and say well we're just

a small group down on the end of rowena street but i want to tell you this is

where somebody can find god if they want him i said this is where they can find

something that's eternal hallelujah something that's real praise god something

that'll help somebody something and that'll do something for somebody. Praise God.

Somebody can be delivered. Somebody come on and clap your hands.

Praise the Lord. If you believe it tonight, praise God.

Oh, come on, Brother Young. We can't get buck wild tonight. It's Wednesday.

I want to tell you what, if it's in the purpose of God, we can get buck wild

on a Wednesday night. Hallelujah.

We can swing from the chandeliers on Wednesday just as good as we can on Sunday. Praise the Lord.

Praise. It'd be good for some of you to try to grab a hold of a chandelier or

something every once in a while. Of course, we don't have none.

You'd be grabbing pretty hard in here.

Jumping high to get ahold of one of them leds praise the lord but

i'll tell you what we need to move in the purpose of

god every once in a while we need to let god do

what god wants to do every once in a while praise the lord we need to understand

that this is when you talk about these things you're talking about things that

are not caramel and are not carnal as these things things that are ethereal

as opposed to gross or opposite of demonically.

See, we're not dealing with demonic things here. We're not dealing with base

things here. We're not dealing with demonic things. We're dealing with things

that go up here. Praise the Lord.

Amen. I said we're dealing with stuff that's up here. It's otherworldly.

It's supernatural. Come on, somebody.

I'm going to have to preach tonight. You're going to have to forgive me. Is it okay?

Because I feel like preaching now and I'm going to. Praise God.

I know it's Wednesday, but it'll be all right.

I said, you'll be all right. Praise the Lord. I got the Holy Ghost on Bible study night.

So you can get the Holy Ghost on Bible study night. You can pray through on Bible study night.

You can be delivered on Bible study night. You can get victory in your heart

on Bible study night. Hallelujah.

You can get deliverance on Bible study night. Your family

can be fixed on Bible study night come on somebody we just

you know what we know we come into church and we sit here

you know all we think about our will we think about our purpose

what i got to do tomorrow what i got to do next week when we come to church

we need to come in here and say lord i fill us with the knowledge of your will

hallelujah fill us with your purpose let us get involved with what you want

god not what everybody else wants not what i want but what do you want.

Let's raise our hands right now and say, God, we want your purpose,

and we want your will to be done. We want to be full of that understanding.

We want to operate in wisdom.

We want to operate in things that are not gross or things that are demonically.

We want to operate in the supernatural.

We want to operate in the regenerative.

I said the regenerative, where it regenerates.

Something comes back to life come on somebody amen we're not interested in stuff dying,

you know if you think start thinking church is dying you get scared isn't

that right nobody wants the church to die church wants

we need that's why we try to have a youth class maybe god

will get a hold of some of them children up there amen god fill

them with the holy ghost this church can be regenerated hallelujah

amen amen amen brother sean

told me the other day he said hey brother young everybody else some of these

older ones getting ready to pass on looks like it's us now that means

we're the old guys now brother sean you know we're the old ones but you know

what we need some regeneration going on hey man we need somebody else getting

the holy ghost we need somebody else getting up under the burden we need somebody

else getting delivered we need somebody else getting up under the knowledge

of his will hallelujah and understand,

spiritually what's going on.

If you don't understand spiritually what's going on you're going to be in darkness pretty quick,

i said you're going to be in darkness pretty quick you get out in

this world and if you don't have a spiritual understanding and understand

your purpose and his purpose you get out in this

world and it's going to get dark pretty fast oh when

i say fast it might take a while but if you don't follow after

his will and his purpose it leads to darkness it

don't lead to light i guarantee you that hallelujah so

i want you to understand in all wisdom and spiritual understanding i want you

to have an understanding of something but i don't want it to be just carnal

i want your intelligence to be spiritual i want you to understand spiritual things praise the lord,

i want you to put together mentally what god's doing and have an understanding

of it in your life so that you might define your purpose and find what his purpose is. Hallelujah.

Because then, when only then, will you find satisfaction. Won't be no satisfaction nowhere else.

Now, notice he was writing this to this Colossian church. He said,

I want you to have all wisdom, spiritual understanding.

Why? Why does he want us to have it? Why? Why?

Why? Because he said that you might walk worthy, that you might live uprightly.

The Bible in basic English says it like this, that you, why?

Why? Why should you be full of his understanding?

Why should you be full of his purpose?

Why should you fall and ask for wisdom?

There is a why that you try to do what you do. There is a why.

It's not for naught. It's not for nothing. And it's not something man-made.

We're talking about the purpose of God. Praise the Lord.

Why? That you, that you, that you, that you, that you, you and me.

What's the purpose? What's it for? Why are the lights on?

Why do we run vans, spend gas money, $4 a gallon? Come on, somebody. Why do you do that?

Why? That somebody might get to the place in verse 10 that you might walk worthy of the.

To all pleasing, the King James says. In other words, not only is God pleased

with how you're living, but you can be pleased with how you're living.

Not only does it please God, it brings pleasure to you.

Amen. Living for God is a blessed thing. Living for God is a powerful thing.

Living for God makes God pleased. And when he's pleased, that means you can be pleased.

And when I say that means you're pleased, I mean, you're happy.

That means you got some joy. You're not full of conflict. You're not full of turmoil.

You're walking and being walking unto all pleasing. Hallelujah.

Pleasing God, pleasing yourself, walking in purpose, walking after the will

of God, walking in spiritual things, praise the Lord, and walking worthy.

It's not, I told you before when we went down to mission that night and it was

the gun battle between the drug, the drugs bust and the guy walked over there

and looked down the alley and the guy was laying there. and he had it in his

face was in the gravel like this.

You know, his face was in the gravel like that. And he was laying in the gravel

and he had his hands back there like that.

And it was almost quite dark. It was almost dark, but not quite dark.

And it's just like he had resigned himself.

And I asked the police, the fire department later, I said, did they shoot that guy?

And he said, yeah, they shot him in the leg. They said there was a drug bust.

So here's this guy laying on his face, laying on his stomach in the alley.

And I thought to myself, that is not the will of God for anybody.

That is not what God wants for people. You talk about his knowledge and what his purpose is.

His purpose is to bring somebody up out of the gravel. Come on, somebody.

His purpose is to put something in their life, hallelujah, where they can walk

worthy, where they can walk with respect, where they can be everything they

want to be and everything God wants them to be.

Amen. That's what it's all about. I said, that's what it's all about.

And the devil's just the opposite. He don't want you to be happy.

He don't want you to have a good life. He wants to kill, steal,

and destroy. Come on, somebody. Amen.

But he said, Paul said, this is the reason. He said, this is the reason that

you would be able to live uprightly in the approval of God, that you may walk,

live, and conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Lord,

fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things.

You see, you can't be happy and find the joy that you want pleasing yourself.

It's not about just pleasing you, and it's not about just pleasing me.

It's about pleasing Him.

I said it's about pleasing Him. And when I'm...

Solomon said it like this. King James says it like this.

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

But if you study that out, he said, fear God and keep his commandments,

for this is the whole of man.

In other words, if you want to be whole, you walk with God. Hallelujah.

If you want to be whole and you want to be happy and you want to have joy,

You walk with God and keep his commandments.

Then you can be a hole. Then you can be everything.

Then you won't have that missing stuff down in your heart, that hole in your heart.

And that's what Paul's saying, that you might walk worthy, that you might be what God wants you to be.

Let me finish up here. And that you would bear fruit, that you would be strengthened,

and that you would bear in all, let's see, where are we?

All pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

You see, the thing about it is, Brother Breeden, you know this,

some of those old timers, the longer you walk with God, the more you know,

the more you understand, the more you see it.

And once you see it, it's like an education. Brother Matthews used to say,

if you get an education, that's one thing nobody can take from you.

And let me say, when you walk with God and you get up under his purpose and

you have start getting this spiritual understanding and this knowledge and it

brings something to your life,

it lights you up, it illuminates you, praise the Lord, and you understand some

things and that turns into knowledge.

And once you know something, you know good and well, you can't turn your back

on it once you know it's true.

God wants everybody to know his truth. He wants everybody to walk in this spiritual thing.

Let's raise our hands right now, somebody. Give me a few minutes. Come on, somebody.

We ought not just come in here saying, well, Wednesday night,

we'll get it over with. We ought to come in here seeking a move of the Holy Ghost.

We ought to come in here with our hands up, singing a song, hallelujah,

saying, God, do something for somebody.

Let your will be done. Let your purpose be done.

Let us have understanding, God, that we might live a life worthy of you.

That we might bear fruit in every good work, God. Amen, amen, amen.

Hallelujah. As the music comes, I'm going to finish up here.

But here's the good one, okay? You ready? Are you ready? Can you see that little

crown over here on the right side?

Let's raise our hands one more time. Hallelujah. Come on, somebody.

Come on. Let's get in. Let's have church, man.

Let's come on and have church on Wednesday night. Praise the Lord.

Amen. We don't have to start at 730 sharp and then 9 o'clock dead.

Praise God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Amen. This is where God is. This is where power is. This is where supernatural

things are. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Okay, listen now,

I want you to walk, I want you to have the knowledge of His will in all wisdom

and spiritual understanding, that you can walk uprightly and be pleasing to God,

that you'd be fruitful in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God.

Why? That you would be strengthened with all might.

That you would be strengthened in a measure of the great power of His glory.

I'm gonna tell you, you can walk in power. You can walk uprightly. Come on, somebody.

We can have troubles in life, praise God. And that's what it says.

Let me go finish this verse. Amen.

That you would be full of the knowledge of His purpose, all wisdom,

experience of the Spirit, living uprightly in the approval of the Lord,

giving fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

So that you can handle it, so that you can deal with life. That's what it's all about.

All this stuff goes together. When you get God, you get strength,

you get power, you get the glory of God, you get deliverance, you get help.

I want somebody to help me out tonight. Praise God.

And made us fit to share the portion, which is the inheritance of the saints in light.

Let's raise our hands again.

God's got a purpose, folks, and it's great. God's got a purpose. Amen.

God wants to help people. He wants people to walk in power and strength and

be everything they want to be and be what God wants them to be.

So that when troubles come, I said last Sunday, I think I did,

the old grandma sitting on the porch and her daughter said, Granny, tornado's coming.

Granny sat there and rocked, rocked. Granny, look, there's a tornado coming.

Granny just sat there and rocked and rocked. Granny, we need to pray.

There's a tornado coming.

Granny, we need to pray. You know what Granny said? I've already done my praying. Hallelujah.

Come on, somebody. Amen. God wants us to walk in victory.

God wants us to walk in power. We don't have to be tossed all around with every

wind of doctrine and all the troubles.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Go ahead and start a song here.

Altar's always open. Anybody wanna pray tonight? Anybody need strength from God tonight?

You got another one on the list? Yes. Amen. Let's go ahead and sing this last

song. Let's raise our hands right now.

Let's pray one for another. Right now, if you're by somebody,

and it's appropriate, why don't you lean over and pray for them tonight.

Just ask them to help them, strengthen them.

God touch the ladies. God touch the men. Come on, somebody.

Hallelujah. If I had only known the last time it would be the last time I would have put off a...

Thank you for listening to our podcast Southwest Apostolic Church is a place of refuge,

if we can help you we'd be glad to do it pastor's cell number 317-469-3100 if

we can help you we'd be glad to do it God bless.