Good morning. It's already started, dear. Yes. If you'll open your Bibles to
Colossians chapter 1, the only thing, Bonnie, is to check the
level, if you would, make sure that this isn't overpowering
or underpowering. It may well be under-impressive. Colossians chapter one. Let's pray. Father, grant us
a measure of your spirit this morning that we might see the
things of Christ in this scripture. We can't see if you don't show
us. We thank you that you've given
us eyes to see. And we pray this morning you'd
give us something to look at. In the name of Christ we pray
it, amen. All right, we'll pick up here in verse nine of Colossians
chapter one. Now, Paul is known for his long
sentences. And this morning we're not even
gonna cover an entire sentence. We're gonna go verses nine through
13. But this sentence starts in verse
nine, And he's not done till the end of verse 18. And one
of these days, just for curiosity's sake, I'm going to diagram that
sentence. I really, when I was a kid, I enjoyed diagramming
sentences. I thought it was a fun riddle.
But that would be one complex mess of dependent and independent
clauses and adverbial phrases and all that kind. But it's just
every time he would say something, He would think of some way to
modify it, and then that would lead him to other issues, and
so it would expand, and then he'd get back on track, but he
kept it all in one sentence. He begins, he says, for this
reason. What reason is this? Now, he's
going to be speaking of praying for them. He says, we've not
stopped praying for you. So for this reason, what reason
was it that he began praying for them and then didn't quit? Well, it was simply this, that
he had received news that they had heard and believed the gospel. Now, what makes you value a person
enough to take time and effort to pray for them? For Paul, it was simply this.
These are brethren in the Lord. These are those who have like
precious faith. They have believed the same gospel
that I believe and preach. He did not say, ever since you
sent me that gift, I have not ceased to pray for you. ever
since you put me on your monthly support list, or ever since you
began telling others about me and what a good preacher I am.
Paul loved everyone who professed the name of Christ in truth,
and he loved them enough to pray for them. I can never talk about prayer,
I can never preach on the subject with anything but a sense of
shame over the small amount of it that I do, at least in that
conscious, devoted prayer all in one sitting. It's almost impossible
for me to sit and think about anything for any significant
amount of time. If I pray, I'll pray a sentence
or two and it'll remind me of some scripture and my mind's
off on that. And I'm not necessarily saying that that's bad. It's
good to think about what God says even as we speak to him.
But just concentrated prayer is difficult for me. And then
also, it can be that people don't come to our minds and they don't
come to our minds sometimes, not always. But sometimes they
don't come to our minds because they don't mean much to us. You know, if we are sick, or
having some pains or other trials, we don't forget about those when
we pray, do we? Now, there's nothing wrong that
we don't forget about them, but let us cultivate the remembrance
of one another in prayer. After all, we all need praying
for. So for this reason, and this
was enough for Paul, these people, had heard the gospel and they
had believed it. They had called upon the name
of the Lord. He said, now he goes on and says,
since the day we heard about you. Now, Paul had never met
these believers. He is not the one that preached
the gospel to them. It was a man named Epaphras,
a fellow laborer with Paul. And so he had gone to Colossae,
and we don't have a record of just the details of his ministry
among them, but he went there and began to preach the gospel,
and some people believed, and a church was formed, and Epaphras
was leading it. And some believe that in time
to come, the man named Philemon, after whom one of the books of
scripture is written, Paul wrote a letter to him, that he was
one of the pastors slash elders in the church. We don't know how long Epaphras
stayed there. You know, folks like the apostles, generally
speaking, they went somewhere for a while and got a church
established. set up leaders and then moved on. And even those
who were called evangelists, like Timothy, he wasn't an apostle,
but he did much the same work that an apostle did, but not
with the same level of authority that apostle would. But he went
and he would set up a church somewhere, you
know, church planting is the modern phrase for it, But he
would find men that were faithful and who knew the word. He'd commit
the word to them, and then he'd move on. Now, he might come back
and check on them, but that's the way I imagine that Epiphras did. But
from the moment that Paul heard about them, he began to pray
for them, and he did not stop. Now, that does not mean continuous
prayer. It means continual prayer. A
little grammar lesson. This is one of the times English
has some distinctions that other languages don't. Continuous is
like water running out of the faucet. Continual is like a drip. And what I mean by that, if you
say, I continually pray for you, it doesn't mean that you are
at every moment in prayer. It means that it's your pattern.
And so he hadn't stopped. He continually prayed for them.
Maybe not every time he prayed, but every time God brought them
to his mind when he was praying, he prayed for them. And here's the things that he
prayed for. He says, we've not stopped praying
for you. We're still in verse nine. asking
God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual
wisdom and understanding. Now, last couple of nights, I
watched a documentary on Netflix called American Gospel, Christ
Alone. I have not yet looked to see
who produced it. Whoever it is, I'd like to call
them up and say, good job. Good job. And they did two things
in this documentary. It's almost two and a half hours
long. It's the only time I've ever
seen a documentary on religion that gets things right. So I'm
assuming that the people whose voices you, and faces you see,
voices you hear and faces you see, they're the ones that produced
it. But they are some of the notable preachers of the gospel
of God's sovereign grace in our day, at least the ones that I
know you could recognize. But they spoke about, well, the first
part of it was setting forth the gospel. And if you can watch
this, I'll tell you, the first 45 minutes are going to bless
your heart as much as anything you've ever listened to. as they
show how the modern gospel has become a matter of working for
blessing. But the gospel of Christ is about
receiving blessing completely free of charge. The latter part
of the documentary is mostly revealing and critiquing the
prosperity gospel, which unfortunately has become the American gospel.
And as Bonnie and I watched it, I despise, I don't want to say
I despise those men, even if I do, I don't want to say it
out loud, but I despise what they do. And it makes me angry
when I see it. And even when we had DirecTV
and they had that Trinity Broadcasting Network, I blocked it because
I would be clicking through channels and it would come across. I could
just see it for a second or two and I was already getting cranked
up. But as much as I knew about these fellows, I didn't know
some of the most outlandish things they were saying. These are the
famous ones, the big ones. But all of them are saying that
the things to pray for are a better job, more money, and that that's
what God wants you to have, and that he wants you to be healthy.
And of course, if you're not healthy and wealthy, it's your
fault. You don't have faith enough. But Paul said, here's what I'm
praying for you all to have. He didn't say, I pray that you'll
have plenty of food, or that you'll have the nicest chariot
available in that day, or any such thing. He said, I pray that
God will fill you with the knowledge of his will, through all spiritual
wisdom, and understanding. It's not as though Paul didn't
care about their day-to-day needs, but our day-to-day needs are
of such lesser importance than our spiritual needs. I don't
want to be sick. I don't want my friends to be
sick. I don't want to be poor or even, I don't even like having
to live hand-to-mouth. I'm just like anybody else. But here is what I want for me
and what I want for you, that God would fill us with a knowledge
of his will. Now, what does he mean by that?
Well, I was told that that means that we would know what God wants
us to do with our lives. That's not God's will. Certainly
not in the sense that he's speaking of here. God's not going to tell
you in any audible sense what you're supposed to do. I put a statement on Facebook,
and I can't remember whether I was quoting somebody or thought
of it myself, but I said, if you want to hear God speak audibly,
read the Bible out loud. That's the only way you're going
to hear anything from God audibly. God's not going to send you a
letter with a schedule. When he says that he may fill
you With the knowledge of his will, the will he is talking
about is the will he has accomplished through Jesus Christ, even the
salvation of his people. In the book of Ephesians chapter
1, it says, he works all things according to the counsel of his
own will. Now, some would say that just
means God does whatever he wants to do. Well, that's true. He
says in the Old Testament, I will do all my pleasure. But when Paul is writing there
in Ephesians chapter one, he says he works all things according
to the counsel of his own will. He means that God has a will,
an end game, a purpose to be accomplished. with this reality
you and I live in. And He works everything in this
reality to bring about that purpose, that will. It's the glorification
of Himself in His Son through the salvation of His people by
the work of Jesus Christ. That's the end game. It says that this creation was
made by Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. Everything that's
going on in this creation is for the purpose of bringing about
the universal declaration that he is Lord, he's worthy to be
Lord, and to glorify the Father by honoring the Son. And this involves the salvation
of all he has chosen, all for whom Christ died, all whom the
Spirit calls, all who believe. And so when he says, I pray that
he'll fill you with the knowledge of his will, He's talking about
that our minds would be utterly captivated with those principles
of the gospel of grace laid out here in the scriptures for us,
and that they would guide our thinking on everything else. The gospel is the light. You know, the sun is the light
of this world. But we don't look at the sun,
do we? But we see everything by the sun. Now, the gospel is
like that, except that we do, we learn the gospel. We look
directly at it, so to speak. But also, we learn to look at
everything else in light of that gospel. We learn to value everything
else. in the light of this will of
God, the salvation of his people to the glory of his son. And you know, the more we do
that, the less we are concerned about the downs of this life
and the less we get wrapped up in the so-called ups of this
life. we become more stable. Paul spoke to the Ephesians of
growing, maturing, and he said, so that you won't be shaken,
so that you won't be tossed about like a ship in the winds, just unmoved. And this comes
through the knowledge of God's will. And it's a spiritual wisdom and
understanding. Now, we can't think of anything
unless we have a natural understanding of the facts concerning it. I
mean, you know, for instance, you can't believe the gospel
if you've never heard it. And there are those who have
heard it and know its doctrines and never believed it. But there's
no one who ever believed it that did not hear its most basic doctrines. But here it's speaking of a spiritual
wisdom and understanding that goes beyond merely understanding
doctrines. It's coming to know them Maybe
better way to put this, it's coming to know him through these
doctrines. I'm glad when people believe
in unconditional election, but I'm even happier when they
come to trust the one who chose. My heart rejoices when someone
sees what is popularly called limited atonement, though that's
a bad name for it. But I'm much more pleased yet
when they understand the power and success of him who made atonement
for our souls. See what I mean? Now, verse 10, and we pray this
Now, you'll notice our translators ended the sentence after verse
nine. And I'm kind of glad they did
that. They broke these things up into sentences that we can
understand better. But the words, and we pray this,
I don't believe it there, it just says, that we ask God to
fill you with wisdom in order that you may live a life worthy
of the Lord and may please him in every way, bearing fruit in
every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. We'll stop
right there. He said, live a life worthy of
the Lord. Now that just doesn't sound right
to our view of grace, does it? How could we be worthy of the
Lord? It's part of our theology that
we cannot please God, that we cannot make ourselves worthy
to be recipients of his grace, and yet here it speaks of living
in a worthy manner and pleasing God in every way. We have to
keep context in mind. We cannot please God the judge.
If we approach God through law, that makes God our judge and
there's no way we're ever going to please him. But we can live
a life pleasing to God our savior. Not perfectly so. We don't claim
any perfection. We'll see what it means here
in the following words. But let us first keep in mind
that if we are commanded to do something in the gospel, then
it is within our grasp to do it. Or if it's not within our grasp
to fulfill an imperfection, it's at least expected that we aim
for it. So live a life worthy. Actually,
this simply means to live a life that's consistent with our claim
to believe and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord says,
why do you call me Lord if you don't do what I say? And sometimes we hear of, for
example, and here's another, just an illustration from natural
life about how words and actions need to match men who are abusive
to their spouses. And whether it just be verbally
or get to physical abuse. Once the wife begins to break
or cry or whatever, you know, or threaten to leave, what will
the man say? Oh, but I love you. Really now? You just beat someone black and
blue and you want to tell me that you love them? And yet we
say we love Christ, that we count him to be Lord. Well, do we live
a life that exemplifies that claim? Now, Here's how he describes
living a life worthy of the Lord. Bearing fruit in every good work. Now let us be reminded that there's
a difference between a righteous work and a good work. You and
I have never done a righteous work. Because a righteous work
means to be in conformity to the standard. And we've never done that, have
we? What is a good work? A good work
is that which is done out of love for the benefit of others. Two things involved in a good
work. It must be motivated by love.
And it must be for the benefit of others, whether it be the
benefit of other brothers and sisters in Christ, or as that
woman who put the alabaster box of ointment on the Lord, he said,
she has wrought a good work on me. Now, there was nothing moral
or immoral about what she did. It wasn't a matter of a righteous
work. It was a matter of a work that
naturally came from her loving and grateful heart toward Christ
who had forgiven her sins and set her free. And its practical value was somewhat
limited, at least as human beings look at it. But it was of great
practical value in a spiritual sense, for it was an act of love
and worship toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And good works over in
Galatians chapter six. Remember, this is the church
that was being overtaken by legalists. And legalists are all about doing the right thing. They are
about righteous work. But Paul says, and I've got to get the exact verse here. Ah, verse nine. Let us not be weary in doing
good. For at the proper time, we will
reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong
to the family of believers. Now, of course, we attempt to
act righteously, but the exhortation there and the prayer of Paul
in the book of Colossians here was not about righteousness.
It was about goodness. And we know the difference. You've
run into righteous people. I put that in quotes. And you
don't even want to be around them. You're afraid that you're
going to step out of whatever they consider to be the proper
boundaries of good conduct and they're going to look down on
you. You have no doubt had experience with people who were very righteous
in the sense that they paid all their bills, but they never gave
anything to anybody. They fulfilled all their responsibilities
and didn't go one step further. They wouldn't steal, but they
wouldn't feed the poor either. They wouldn't murder, but they
would not defend the innocent either. What is good? Good. is to take from what is yours,
whatever it be, in terms of resources of time or finances, energy,
whatever, and turn that to the welfare of others. That's what
good is. And so we, he said, bear fruit
in every good work. I remember that story of Dorcas. The woman that died and everyone
was weeping over her because it says she was full of good
works. And then we find out what the
good works were. She was always making clothes for people. Remember
this was in a day that coming by clothes wasn't easy. Clothes were expensive. You took
special care with them because they had to last you a long time.
and the cloth were woven by hand and stitched by hand and all
that, this woman would spend her time making cloaks and whatnot,
and then just give them to people. That's good works. And there's
many other ways, and we should give ourselves to that. Growing
in the knowledge of God, Peter said growing grace in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. grow in our understanding
of who he is and what he's done. And then he say, goes on verse
11, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might, so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully
giving thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in
the inheritance of the saints and the kingdom of light. For
he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into
the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins. And as you can tell, we're not
even gonna get done with as much as I thought we were gonna get
done with. But here we have Paul praying, and we see what he's
praying about. Let us make all our requests
known to God, whatever they are. But let us emphasize those spiritual
things which carry eternal weight. And let us give ourselves to
efforts that bring about the welfare of others. Let us do
good to all men, especially those of the household of faith. Okay.