Prayer

Good morning.

Today's reading is from the Book of Colossians, chapter 1, verses 9 through 14.

Colossians 1:9–14

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, being 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 forgiveness of sins.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Welcome to church this morning.

Thanks.

As Ryan kind of alluded to, both James and Zach are uh out with COVID this week.

So we're uh we're we're just doing it.

Um but you know, it uh we we talked a little bit about it this morning with the the volunteers.

I think it's um a really uh a testament to a healthy church and to the the health of Zach and James's leadership that um they can can just need to step out and um we just continue to to worship the Lord together and um and make this thing happen.

So I can be really uh thankful for that.

Um so yeah, I I don't preach very often.

Um and since I don't have a ton of experience, usually my preparation uh takes like two or three weeks.

I usually try to have an outline put together of a sermon like two weeks in advance, and then I usually finish it like uh about a week before uh I'm scheduled to preach so that I can practice and practice and practice.

Helps me to feel not as nervous, helps me to uh work on my delivery.

Um so yesterday I missed a call from James at five o'clock, and uh I called him back at 5:30 uh right before we were eating dinner.

So I knew exactly what he was gonna say as soon as he said uh that he just woke up from a three-hour nap.

So my preparation is a little bit different this week than than normal.

Um but uh you know, luckily we have a newborn at home, so it's uh not like I have too much else to do.

So it's fine.

The moral of the story is don't pick up your phone or return calls, especially from your pastor on Saturday night.

Uh no, but actually, I'm I'm really grateful to be here and to be preaching on this passage.

Um, it's actually kind of crazy how God works and even convicting.

Um this passage is really meaningful to James.

He is kind of the reason he wanted to preach through while he was excited to preach through Colossians.

Um he's had it memorized for years, and it's um verses that he prays for his wife, his kids, for our church.

He's probably prayed it directly for you at some point.

Um, so in that sense, it's a real bummer that he's not here to preach it.

Um on the other hand, uh, this passage is one that my mom actually has prayed for me for my entire life.

Um and I I can confidently say that I would not be standing here uh in this role if that was not true.

Um, so that's a pretty cool connection.

Um and I'm preaching off of James's notes.

I didn't have to like throw something together, so that's that's good for everybody.

But um when he emailed them over and I opened up the passage, started reading through it, um it was also just super convicting for me.

Like I said, we have a newborn at home, a two-month-old.

And as you can imagine, uh his arrival has uh just you know thrown our life and our schedule into disarray in a lot of ways.

Um and for weeks uh or months really, um something that I've been thinking about a lot and been aware of is just uh something that's changed in the worst in my life, uh, is just my prayer life.

And um, so so when I read this passage um and I read over James's sermon that he prepared, I thought, man, this is a great sermon for me to hear.

It's not a great sermon for me to be preaching.

Uh and um yeah, the way that Paul prays for the Colossians here is not a way that I feel like I've been praying um in the last couple weeks or months.

But I think uh in doing so, that we, this is that's kind of a microcosm of the way that God works in our lives.

And and it is just a window into how the gospel um works in our lives in spite of the way that we are faithful to him.

In this letter, Paul's praying for a young church to mature in their faith.

And it's typical of Paul to offer instruction and encouragement or even rebuke in the context of prayer.

He doesn't just tell the Colossians or the Ephesians to be encouraged or to grow in the faith.

He also tells them that he's praying for them to do so.

And what this tells us about Paul's ministry is that he understands that it doesn't belong to him.

His encouragement and instruction must be rooted in prayer.

Because his ministry, just like our lives and our ministries, are only effective by the work of the Spirit.

Christian maturity cannot take place outside of the context of prayer.

It's the means that God has given us to connect the small actions that we take into the grand narrative that He's accomplishing.

And just a quick little aside: God hears your prayers and he works through them so that you might have more joy.

Throughout my life, I've I've prayed many prayers that have begun something like, uh, I guess I should pray now.

But God used even that, that uh lack of motivation, that just little bit of faith to pray to him, and he's answered those prayers and he's heard me.

What what we're saying, what I'm saying is that God doesn't expect us or doesn't um that we don't pray so that we can earn our way to God or get our heads up into heaven.

We pray because we know that God has come down to us.

So for all of Paul's ministry, he prays.

And in his prayer, we see Paul lay out a pattern of Christian maturity.

So before we get to our passage, let me pray for our time this morning.

Lord, uh, thank you for this morning.

Thank you that uh you are in control and that uh this is this is your church.

It's um it's not James's church, certainly not my church, and um that no matter what the circumstances are, that that you have a plan and that your will is being accomplished, and that we can trust you in that.

Um would you reveal yourself more fully to us this morning?

Would you fill us this morning with the knowledge of your will, that through my preaching, that we all, that even I will come to a greater understanding and a greater intimacy with you, and that we would come to a deeper love and trust in you.

Um, would you also be with James and Zach?

Would you um heal their bodies and be with their families as they recover from COVID?

I pray all this in your name.

Amen.

All right, so today we're gonna cover just these three and a half verses, and we're gonna kind of look at three things that Paul is praying for the Colossians.

The first is what we're terming this a spiral of growth, second is tools for perseverance, and third is an overflow of thanksgiving.

So if you're like me today and feel like your prayer life is lacking, or maybe some other element of your life is not measuring up, then my hope is that all of this will lead to encouragement and hope rather than guilt or shame.

So, first, verse 9, the growth spiral.

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 and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

The and so here is actually a really important connection to the previous verses in Colossians, which James looked at last week.

This is where Paul describes his gratitude for the gospel taking root and establishing his young church, this young church.

And we see a parallel here that just as they heard the gospel and became established in it, Paul too also heard about them and began participating in that, in their establishment by prayer.

And this prayer at first looks like a circle.

Be filled with the knowledge of his will, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, and then increase in the knowledge of God.

But it's actually a spiral which describes how we mature as Christians.

It's a spiral of growth, which we which begins with being filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Notice, first of all, that it's not a filling up of yourself, but it's a being filled.

The knowledge of God's will is a gift given to us by God Himself through his spirit.

And this is another reason that Paul centers his ministry on prayer.

God himself is the one who acts to show himself to us.

And of course, how else could it be?

God is personal, and we're learning who he is.

We don't learn a person unless they reveal themselves to us.

But Paul can pray confidently that God will fill the Colossians with the knowledge of his will.

In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 9, Paul writes, He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposes in Christ.

Ephesians 1:9

And that translation is the NIV, which we're using here because good pleasure is a fuller, better translation than uh the way that the ESV translates it, which is good purpose.

See, it's it's the good pleasure of God to reveal himself to us and thus fill us with true knowledge of him.

Our God desires for us to know him.

Some of us find it difficult to share ourselves, but God doesn't.

Paul is praying that the Colossians would know God.

In the second part of verse 9, he says, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So, what is Paul referring to?

Here we see three interrelated terms knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

First, the knowledge of his will.

Knowledge of his will is an understanding of the whole of God's saving purposes in Christ.

The gospel is not just an action that God has taken, but also a revealing of his very heart.

In the sending of his son Jesus, we see his great love for the world.

In the gospel, we see his will revealed for sinners to be saved by grace.

But this will of his grand plan of redemption operates at the personal level of our lives, so that we might discern what his will is in the particulars of our obedience to him.

We receive this knowledge through spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Spiritual wisdom and understanding is a character that's shaped by the understanding of who you are before God.

It begins with the fear of the Lord, which recognizes that we aren't the Lord.

We stand as creatures, saved by grace, beneath him, but over the world.

So we are able to look out into the world as ourselves, think practically about the way that God is working out his good purposes.

And this is very different from how our culture thinks about wisdom and understanding.

Since the scientific revolution, we've thought that the best way to gain understanding about the world is to remove ourselves and our subjectivity so that we might attain an uncorrupted and objective perspective on reality.

Something that's relationally detached.

But the Bible teaches us that wisdom is precisely the opposite.

It begins relationally with our understanding of God and how we're able to understand how it is that we are meant to relate to the world.

This knowledge of God's will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding is describing a person who is shaped by their relationship to God, shown in the gospel.

And what is the result of this knowledge of wisdom?

Verse 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.

This knowledge of God's will is not a detached assessment, but is able to be implemented and lived out.

In fact, it must be lived out for it to be effective knowledge that grows and develops.

I think there's a cultural critique here as well.

Just like the scientific method attempts to gain wisdom through a detached, objective view of reality, I think it's easy to forget that Christianity is an applied science.

In order for us to be increasing in the knowledge of God, we must be bearing fruit and walking in a manner worthy of the Lord.

We cannot just know the right answers in our head.

We must also practice them with our hands.

So Paul here prays that their knowledge of the Lord would allow the Colossians to walk in a manner that is worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.

Does this feel like a burden, though?

Is Paul just praying something impossibly high for the Colossians?

Or worse, is he heaping up an impossible standard for them to abide?

No.

This is where we have to trust the gospel.

He's praying that they would be ushered into this reality of a new creation that they have become in Christ.

That in Christ, they're now able to walk in such a way which by the Spirit is worthy of and pleasing to the Lord.

Of course, Paul knows that we are not in this life made perfect.

And that once we become Christians, it's not as though we are capable of or incapable of sinning, or that sin is no longer part of our lives.

But a new door has opened.

For once, before we were Christians, we were incapable of pleasing God.

But now in his spirit, we can.

This new creation that we we operate in, uh, that this new creation that we are operates just like the old creation was intended to.

It bears fruit and multiplies.

And that is precisely Paul's hope for the Colossians, that they will begin to bear fruit in every good work, so that their lives would be participants in the new creation that God has secured in Christ.

God is doing this work through us.

And here's where the shape of Paul's prayer for Christian maturity becomes a spiral.

A life based on true knowledge of God and lived out of that knowledge leads to a deeper knowledge of God, leads to more fruitfulness, leads to deeper intimacy.

Knowledge begets holiness, begets knowledge, begets holiness.

It's a spiral of intimacy in our relationship with the Lord.

In John 14, it says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Whoever keeps Jesus' commandments, God will be manifest to.

That is, they will be deeply known and intimate with God.

The mature Christian pursues holiness because they pursue intimacy with God.

Not to earn his favor, not to prove themselves worthy.

No, that is already done by Christ, Christ's death and resurrection on the cross.

This is the gospel.

We are sinners, and yet Christ came to us to save us.

And by being filled with that knowledge of his will, the knowledge that he saves sinners like you and me, we are given the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, to bear fruit, and walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

Deep trust in the gospel is the mark of Christian maturity.

Not perfect obedience, not having all the right answers or theology.

Trust in the gospel.

So for me, when I feel like I've had a season of ignoring God and my lack of prayer is a clear indication of that.

It's so easy to think that I have to work on myself, to fix myself up before I can come back to God.

Or even preach this morning.

But the gospel tells me that it's Jesus who's working in me.

That God is desiring to make himself manifest to me, that he wants to know me.

The first step in getting back onto the growth spiral is simply to confess my need for God and accept his work in my life.

So the mature, the mature Christian pursues holiness because they pursue knowledge of God.

What is it to know God?

What could possibly be a higher aim for your life?

What could possibly be more encouraging than this God dying for you to know him?

Come to the gospel to be remade and know the Lord.

But be sure of this, you will face opposition.

So Paul prays for their growth.

He prays for tools of perseverance, which is our second theme.

Verse 11.

Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.

Our God is a powerful God.

He rescued his people from Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

He makes empires to rise and fall.

Our God is mighty to save.

But we are weak and faint-hearted.

You may be considering to yourself that you're in nothing like a growth spiral.

Maybe your life feels more like a death spiral.

Like me, these verses feel like a burden or convicting when you think over the last couple weeks or even years of your life.

But what does Paul pray here for the Colossians?

That they would be strong enough to get their act together?

That they would be holy enough to be used by God?

No.

No, he prays that they would be strengthened by God's power.

We're strengthened by him.

We are weak.

He is strong.

He attends our weakness and saves us.

It's through his power that we're strengthened.

And in accord with what?

His glorious might.

What does that glorious might equip us with?

The best apologetic one-liners?

The ability to defeat God's enemies, especially in the culture wars?

No, it's endurance and patience with joy.

These are our weapons and tools.

A cool, quiet spirit, which understands that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is in control of all things, and he will accomplish his purposes.

Endurance is needed to face impossible situations.

And patience is needed to face impossible people.

And you will face both.

And this joy then naturally leads us to thanksgiving.

Verse 12.

Giving thanks to the Father.

So lastly, this prayer is grounded in thanksgiving to the Father.

The Christian life is a life which flows from gratitude to Him.

The verses that follow verse 12 that we'll look at next week explode into expounding the beauty of Christ and His work.

Today, we just want to briefly touch on that the result of a life marked by the gospel of Jesus is one of continual thanksgiving.

Just like Paul, as we take laps around this growth spiral, as we grow in endurance and patience through the Spirit, we will have reminder after reminder of God working in our lives to show us how much he loves us.

Just like this morning for me, God used James having COVID in order to remind me that he loves me.

And this produces great thanksgiving in our hearts.

So let's run to Jesus together as a church.

Let's put our hope in him, in his great might and strength, not in ourselves.

Let's encourage one another to accept Jesus' free gift of grace and allow him to draw close to us.

Are there questions this week?

No questions.

Cool.

Let me pray and then we'll take communion.

Lord, thank you for saving us, for guiding us, protecting us, and showing yourself to us.

Thank you for sending Jesus down to us so that we might know you and love you.

Will you fill us with your knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that we may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to you, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of you, being strengthened with all power, according to your glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.

It's in your name that we pray.

Amen.